When COVID-19 broke out, many jobs were stopped, except food production, which could not be halted. Food is an essential service, and farmers and food producers kept working amid the threat of the virus. However, farmers are among the least recognized in this time of the pandemic, at times taken for granted despite their important responsibility of feeding the world.
Despite the lack of recognition, farmers continued their critical work, ensuring that food remained available to everyone. To highlight their invaluable contributions and to bring attention to their efforts, we turn to a creative and engaging approach.
We are inviting youth members of farmers’ organizations under the AFOSP-MTCP and APFP platform to join the Young Farmers Dance Challenge. Through dancing, we challenge our young food heroes to show how small-scale farmers and food producers are helping recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and their contributions to preventing the spread of the virus.
This dance contest aims to:
- Attract young people to join Farmers’ Organizations
- Build friendship and cooperation among young farmers
- Raise awareness about young farmers’ contribution to preventing the spread of COVID-19 as well as their contribution to the recovery from the pandemic
WHO CAN JOIN
- Member of any of the farmers’ groups within the AFOSP-MTCP2 or APFP farmers’ organization partners (as certified by NFO and NIA)
- Young farmers (15 to 40 years old)
HOW TO JOIN
- Form a group of 5 to 10 young farmers–can be a mixture of women and men or can be all male or all female.
- Take a video of your group dancing. You can perform any popular dance (e.g. Fight Song Frontliner Dance Challenger or IFAD’s Dance for Change) or create your own dance routine with your own music.
- The music and dance steps must show gestures that appreciate smallholder farmers as food heroes and food frontliners amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The dance performance may also depict gestures that raise awareness on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 e.g. hand-washing, social distancing, etc.
- For areas that require wearing a face mask and/or face shield, participants must wear these during their performance to adhere to the health protocol.
- The video must be 60 seconds. This includes a short introduction of the group and what agribusiness they want to do if they win. If the spoken language in the introduction is not in English, it must include an English subtitle or voice-over. If the video exceeds 60 seconds, it will be cut by the APFP RIA team to meet the specified duration.
- Email your video entries to afairish@asianfarmers.org and afahana@asianfarmers.org.
- The deadline for submission of entries is on 18 September 2020.
CRITERIA FOR JUDGING
There will be one grand winner who will be selected according to the following criteria:
Popularity – 50%
Number of Facebook and YouTube likes and shares
Once uploaded to the APFP Facebook and YouTube, participants will campaign for their votes for their respective entries. The links to the videos will be shared with the participants.
Relevance to the theme – 20%
The overall concept of the performance shows family farmers as food heroes and front liners or the dance routine depicts actions that help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and show people rising against the pandemic and other challenges confronting farmers
Teamwork – 20%
The introduction about the group and their plan on how to use the grand prize
Choreography – 10%
Creativity and excellent performance of the dance routine
PRIZE
The grand winner will receive:
- Training and coaching on preparing a business plan that the winning group intends to undertake
- A Grant of USD 1000 to support the implementation of a simple business plan reviewed and approved by the Business Development Officer of APFP
As an incentive, all groups that will submit entries will be given priority to join a training on farm and business planning. Linking support/ referral/ assistance to find resources locally to support the business plan shall also be extended to all participants.
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