JIS Launches Heritage Poster Competition

The Jamaica Information Service (JIS) has launched its inaugural Heritage Poster Competition, under the theme, ‘We are Free’.

Targeting secondary level students across Jamaica in Grades 7 to 13, the competition will last for two months.

Students are being asked to express their thoughts on freedom and its meaning through visual art, in the form of graphic or illustrated posters.

The poster competition complements the agency’s highly successful annual Heritage Essay Competition. Both competitions will close on Friday, October 31.

Chief Executive Officer of the JIS, Donna-Marie Rowe, explained that the Jamaica Information Service enjoys favourability among a wide cross-section of viewers and listeners, and through the competitions, the agency is seeking to engage the young people in high schools.

“We are keen on reaching our teenage audience to give them a voice and challenge them to enter discussions on national issues,” the CEO said.

Mrs. Rowe noted that the poster competition is a way of challenging the youngsters to utilise their talents in art illustration as well as computer generated art.

“We are encouraging them to maximise various graphic arts software that allow persons to develop impressive artwork depicting our heritage and which will hopefully, form part of our historical and cultural landscape,” she said.

Entrants may submit in one of two categories – graphic designs and illustrations. Posters will be judged on interpretation of the topic, originality, creativity, artistry, and presentation. They must be no larger than 11 inches by 17 inches, and done in landscape or portrait orientation.

Graphic posters should include no other image but those provided on the JIS website through DropBox, and all pieces must be submitted by filling out the entry form on the website: www.jis.gov.jm.

Students entering the graphics category are being asked to submit their posters using a cloud storage service such as DropBox, SkyDrive or Google Drive. Illustrations, however, should be mailed or dropped off at the JIS Head Office located at 58a Half-Way Tree Road, or the Montego Bay Office located at the National Housing Trust building, 2nd Floor, 42 B-C Union Street, Montego Bay, St. James.

This inaugural competition will run alongside the fourth staging of the agency’s Heritage Essay Competition, which requires primary level students from nine to 12 years old, to write an original essay on this year’s topic, ‘Which National Heritage Site is Most Significant? Why?’

Director of Production at the JIS, and Chair of the JIS Planning Committee, Enthrose Campbell, is excited about this year’s prospects and looks forward to the continuation of the essay competition.

“The JIS Heritage Competition has enjoyed tremendous success. It has had excellent student participation from all across Jamaica. This year we are again challenging our children to show their understanding of our past. We are asking them to look at the places around them and think about their significance to events in the past as well as to modern Jamaica,” Ms. Campbell explained.

The essay competition requires the child to write a 400-500 word piece, which will be judged on relevance to the topic, originality, accuracy and analysis of research data, writing style and language skills. Essay submission should also include the Title page and Bibliography or List of References. At least one of the references must be a JIS source.

Relatives of JIS staff members are not eligible to participate, and students entering the competitions should ensure that they keep a copy of their work.

For further details, persons are being asked to contact the JIS at 926-3590-4, or email: heritageessay@jis.gov.jm or heritageposter@jis.gov.jm.