Exciting Video and Life Skills Programme for Secondary Schools

'Bottom-Up' not 'Top-Down'
Panasonic Kid WItness News is a bottom-up video and life skills programme empowering secondary level students in five continents. 'Bottom-up' means that the students are in control of their own creative process and have full responsibility for and ownership of the end product.

Free Equipment !
At no cost to schools, the programme provides state-of-the-art video production equipment and training for the development of School Video Teams.

630 Schools in 24 Countries and Regions
Beginning with two schools in New Jersey, U.S.A. in 1989, the Panasonic KWN programme has grown to support 749 schools in 24 countries. For the competition year 2008-9, there are 91 schools taking part across Europe including 23 in the U.K. There will be a similar number of schools taking part for 2009-10.

Tight Schedules Means Tight Team Work
There are ten 14/15 year old students in each School Video News Team. They have four months to research and produce a four minute video report on an aspect of global citizenship from the point of view of their own community. Naturally, teams aim to impress the Awards Panel with their video report but their key audience consists of fellow students around the world. Inspirational workshops develop production, camera and editing expertise. Action-packed lunchtime and after-school meetings hone research, communication and negotiating skills.

Competition Themes
Both last year and in the current 2008-9 competition year students have had a choice of two themes for their videos - communication and ecology.

UK Schools Scoop Top Global Awards
In 2006, students from Eaton Bank School in Cheshire represented Europe in New York where they won the International Grand Prix with their inspirational film about a Congleton woman who has raised enough money to build 12 schools in Gambia. In 2007, Culcheth School from Warrington won the UK and European Grand Prix for 'Cleaning up the Streets', a humorous but thought provoking video about the sticky problem of chewing gum on the streets of Manchester. In 2008 we won in Europe once again! Testbourne Community School produced 'Won't Listen, Can't Hear', a very professional video about the effects of loud music and noise on hearing.