Washington DC, 1 July 2024 (PAHO) - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) launched the 2024 "Youth Voices" creative contest on July 1 and invites adolescents and young people between the ages of 10 and 24 from the Americas to express their opinions on what can be done to improve the quality of health services for young people.
This call will be open for one month, from July 1 to 31, 2024. Participants will be able to submit their individual or group proposals by selecting one of the general creative categories (painting, drawing, illustration, comic, poem, narrative, video and song), or the category assisted by Artificial Intelligence (AI), which was included for the first time in this third edition.
The Youth Voices 2024 contest seeks to learn from the participants themselves how to improve the quality and use of health services for young people, in order to reduce preventable mortality and morbidity, and optimize the health and well-being of young people in the Americas.
Access to health is the ability to use comprehensive, appropriate, timely, and quality health services when they are needed, states PAHO.
“PAHO is committed to support development of quality health care services for all. Knowing what young people need and expect from health services, can inform improvement of quality services for them,” remarked PAHO’s Regional Advisor on Adolescent Health, Dr. Sonja Caffe.
PAHO first launched this mechanism for the participation of adolescents and young people in 2022 with the Youth Voices creative contest dedicated to the prevention of adolescent pregnancy, and a second contest in 2023 dedicated to mental health. More than 800 adolescents and young people from the Americas have sent their proposals and met the requirements in these two previous editions.
The winners of Youth Voices will receive cash prizes and their original works (created especially for the contest) will be published on PAHO communication channels and/or related campaigns.
