Jessica is Japan-bound after global video triumph

Jessica Waite's three-minute animation was one of three winners of a joint worldwide student competition to make a video about sustainable development awareness organised by UNESCO and Hong Kong film company Salon Films.

She will receive her prize at the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development which begins in Nagoya on 10 November, where her film - What is Sustainability?- will be shown.

Jessica, now a project assistant with Cycling4All – a project based at the University’s Students’ Union – made the video while still a student and an intern at the project. Encouraged by colleagues, she submitted it for the competition and then forgot about it.

“A call came up on my phone that was a Hong Kong area number and when I listened to the voicemail I couldn’t believe it. It was an invitation to come to Japan to receive my prize. I’d completely forgotten about entering but to win is just amazing,” she said.

Video and media production has been a hobby for some time and Jessica, who graduated this summer in Peace and Development Studies, produced the film herself, creating the animations and using the Students’ Union radio Ramair studio facilities for the voice over.

Going to the conference in Japan won’t be all play however. The competition organisers have asked her, along with her fellow winners, to produce another video while she is there. Although she hasn’t yet had the brief, it will involve interviewing young conference delegates.

Jessica’s film can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-MrV1Q_8YI

More information about the competition can be found at http://www.salonmedia.com/guvc/#.VEYs2GddWSo

Details of the conference can be found at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/events/calendar-of-events/education-global-conferences/