SPRINGDALE — Two Har-Ber High School students are helping inform the community with a public service announcement that won first place in a statewide youth suicide prevention contest.
The Youth Suicide Prevention PSA and Poetry Contest was sponsored by Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and The Jason Foundation, a youth suicide awareness organization. The contest was open to grades six through 12 and had more than 500 submissions, said Trent Jones, multimedia coordinator for Springdale District Television, a television channel and production class for students in Springdale.
Web Watch
‘There Is Hope’
To see “There is Hope,” go to youtube.com/watch?v=x_Y02MGVAU4&feature=youtu.be.
The advertisement by seniors Mikayla Allen and Grace Martin serves as a channel for people to communicate their message to the audience, Martin said. “There is Hope” is meant to convey suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
“It lets people know that they’re not alone,” Martin said. “Be strong because you never know who you’re inspiring.”
Working on broadcast packages and submitting finished work to competitions helped students take ownership of their work as well as contribute to the community, Jones said.
“Students are doing work anyway, so why not do it in a way where it impacts the community?” Jones asked.
Hard work, dedication and the knowledge they can make a difference in the community are the values Jones said he hopes his students gained by winning this contest.
The students do a lot of news projects in class, Allen said.
“It’s just more fun to get creative.”
Martin said she liked the public service announcement project better than their news projects.
“It was a nice break from the monotony,” she said.
The video is about one minute long and features three people who were once suicidal teens.
The students said their biggest challenge while creating the public service announcement was hearing people talk about their experiences with suicidal thoughts. This was an emotional experience for them because the people they interviewed on camera were people who had been suicidal, Allen said.
They put the public service announcement together in one weekend and filmed it in Martin’s bathroom using a black curtain as a background. The beginning of the video is in black and white but ends in color to show a transition from darkness and hopelessness to hope and a bright future, Martin said.
Allen and Martin were recognized at an awards ceremony Monday. Two teams in Rogers received honorable mention in the contest, Jones said.
The winning public service announcement will be shown during commercial breaks on the Springdale District Television channel, he said.