Youth Art Challenge
UNA-Nashville, the first chapter of United Nations Association-USA founded in 1945, sponsored its first annual local UNA challenge organized by UNA-Nashville K-12 Education Committee members Linell, Tena Bailey, and Felicia Jackson. This year’s pilot competition was open to Murfreesboro City Schools’ 5th and 6th graders. The challenge was to connect one or more UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights articles in a 1-2-page handwritten essay and/or a hand-drawn 8.5 x 11-inch poster. The committee emailed contest criteria and the judges’ scoring rubrics to teachers to distribute to students along with a challenge kick-off video featuring Mrs. Incredible (a.k.a. Mrs. Jackson) to encourage students to stretch their imagination and do their best, non-AI-generated, incredible work. The competition began on United Nations Day (Thursday, October 24, 2024). A total of thirty essay and sixty-two poster entries were submitted, and UNA-Nashville board members judged the nineteen finalists in each category.
The challenge was featured at the Tennessee Celebration of International Human Rights Day on December 10, 2024, in Nashville. Finalists in each category were invited to attend the event, and the top three poster and essay winners received a medal of congratulations. On Wednesday, December 18, committee members and Mrs. Incredible will visit each school to award certificates of participation to every student who submitted an entry and to deliver monetary prizes—first place $100, second place $75, and third place $50—to essay and poster winners.
Essay Winners
1st Place: Mariz Morcos – Overall Creek Elementary
2nd Place: Myvan Abdelmalak – Salem Elementary
3rd Place: Yovanny Mendez Rivera – Reeves-Rogers Elementary
Poster Winners
1st Place: Kimberly Teletor Cotzal – Mitchell-Neilson Elementary
2nd Place: Merrit Rateeb – Overall Creek Elementary
3rd Place: Alisson Duenas Martinez – John Pittard Elementary