Meeting Summary for Informative Meeting on the 2025 J.U.C. Media / Digital Art, Research & Writing Awards for International High School Students
Organized & Presented by
The Light Millennium Charitable Global Human Advancement Organization (June 21, 2024)

PowerPoint Presentation based on the Guidelines of the 2025 J.U.C. Awards

INTERACTIVE SESSION > Interview with Bircan Ünver on the Guidelines of the 2025 J.U.C. Awards
Conducted by Duru Büyükbaşaran

INTRODUCTION: 

[LMGlobal.Org] The moderator of the Session, Duru Büyükbaşaran, briefly introduced the J.U.C. Media, Research, and Writing Awards Project, which was initially introduced in New York City on January 29, 2020, by Bircan* Ünver mother of John Ünver Culkin, “J.U.C.”. Ms. Büyükbaşaran also received the First-Place Award in Writing/#Türkiye100 in the 2023 J.U.C. Awards.

Through the #JUCAwards2025 project, The Light Millennium, a Charitable Global Human Advancement Organization, has aimed to encourage writing, research, and creative and innovative ideas by high-school students as well as by former students who had dropped out of school. It is a bi-annual project, and the third of its kind will be presented in March 2025. (The age category is from 14 to 20.)

The Organization aims to provide separate monetary awards under the following four main categories: Media/Digital Arts, Research, Writing & Innovation categories – each of the four considerations, which are defined in the Guidelines/Section #IV, which is also reflected in the following PowerPoint Presentation / Slide#3.

The below summary is based on the 2025 J.U.C. Awards Informative & Interactive Session, which was presented virtually by Light Millennium Global on June 21, 2024.

The guest speakers of the session were Dr. Dahlia Sabri and Dr. Serpil Tunçer, and Bircan Ünver was the main speaker.

The introduction of the project concluded with the following message with a specific emphasis on this summer: “Through this meeting, we aim to encourage students to work on water theme-centered submission during this summer, along with toward involvement of active participation of interested schools and civil society organizations/NGOs in the project.“

[* BirJon is for English pronunciation.]

THEME: WATER ACTION DECADE

Initial Open CALL to the International High School through the 2025 J.U.C. Awards through its Guidelines officially introduced at the LMGlobal.Org’s 2024 Water Day with the theme #WaterForPeace international panel on March 24, 2024. The organization encourages to submission of creative media projects, digital arts, scientific and/or technological, or both related research papers, critical essays, short stories, interviews on the dedication theme, and innovative ideas each of which has to address one of the grouped of seven core ideas (listed under “Dedication Theme under Section-IX”), and/or combined themes that interested students might incorporate in their concept with one of those as well. The suggested themes in connection with the Water Action Decade are also presented in the following link/Slide#5.

In this context, one of the key evaluation criteria is stated as follows, “we will look for ideas by each applicant/student’s / youth his/her “Commitment” to the #WaterActionDecade along with an original and complete submission that also reflect an action plan as well.”

ON THE SDG#6 & WATER ACTION DECADE

Then, the moderator Duru Büyükbaşaran introduced the Guest Speaker of the session, Dr. Dahlia Sabri, Board Member, Intl. Water Resources Association; Water Resources & Development Adviser; Chair, Egypt IWRA-Egypt Chapter.

Dr. Sabri focused on the Sustainable Development Goal-6 Goal and its sub-targets and walked through each target as the basis of the SDG-6 to lay out ground to interested students. SDG-6 aims to ensure access to safe and affordable water for all and to sustainably manage water and sanitation. She elaborated on the six sub-goals, including improving water quality and increasing water use efficiency, and outlined the strategies to achieve these targets. Dr. Sabri pointed out the challenges, such as data availability issues and inadequate capacity, and suggested solutions including strengthening capacity-building programs, developing an integrated database for monitoring, and raising public awareness through various media channels. She emphasized the importance of stakeholder partnerships and coordination across departments to achieve this collective goal.

In the second part of Dr. Sabri’s presentation, then she focused on the United Nations’ Water Action Decade in connection with the 2025 J.U.C. Awards’s dedication theme.

The above slide was presented by Dr. Sabri at the Informative Session on June 21, 2024.

Dr. Sabri briefed on the United Nations’ Water Action Decade, which aims to accelerate efforts towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2028. The initiative focuses on promoting sustainable water management practices and fostering international cooperation to address issues such as water scarcity, pollution, and inadequate infrastructure. Key initiatives include raising awareness about water sanitation and encouraging knowledge-sharing and best practices. 

Following, the Moderator, invited Bircan Ünver, M.A., Founder-President and Head Rep. of The Light Millennium, Charitable Global Human Advancement Organization (2001, NY) to the United Nations Department of Global Communications for her presentation on the Guidelines of the 2025 J.U.C. Awards.

Bircan introduced the Guidelines of the 2025 JUC Media, Digital Art, Research, and Writing Innovation Awards through a PowerPoint presentation, highlighting the project’s core theme, seven grouped water action ideas, and its main four categories to be contributed towards the Water Action Decade, along with the definition and amount of the overall excellence, first, second, and third place awards. She emphasized the importance of water and the need for individual, academic, professional, community, and society-level commitments towards ‘awareness‘ and ‘conscience building‘ by breaking down the concept into seven grouped sub-categories that each and all have inseparable ties to water. The idea of “Water For All” and “Water For Life” was reiterated throughout the session.

Deadline & Timelines:

Then Bircan announced the timelines of the 2025 J.U.C. Awards such as the initial sharp deadline by October 31, 2024; the Outcome of the overall submissions (quantity, quality, geographical locations/countries, and participated schools) to be announced through media release during the third week of November 2024. 
She also talked about the process that all eligible submissions will be posted in the respective category as blind/with a code for each eligible submission. Once all the eligible submissions in four categories including media and digital arts posted, then a second media release will follow along with the semi-finalist in February 2025. The winners may be announced during the first week of March 2025 or purely during the projected Award Ceremony on March 22, 2025.

What are the benefits?

Bircan emphasized the benefits of applying, including global recognition, networking, and learning opportunities, inclusion in the related book project as a contributing author, potentially becoming a student coordinator, and making his/her submission and/or winning piece globally visible, accessible, and recognized.
Additionally, she acknowledged the contributions of the Evaluation Committee members and mentioned very recent successful outcomes of the 2023 J.U.C. Award Ceremony-based video program, which was produced by her for the Light Millennium Television Series, and cablecasted through QPTV local channels in August 2023, and time to time reruns onward. The video program of the Award Ceremony, which was selected as the “Best” in the Web-Based Programming / Independent Producer category by the Foundation of the Alliance of Community Media – 2024 Hometown Media Awards. The award ceremony is scheduled in San Jose, California on June 26, 2024. She indicated that although she won’t be able to pick up the plaque in person one of QPTV’s representatives will do so on her behalf.

Book Project

Based on the outcome of the prior dedication theme of the 2023 J.U.C. Awards, “Hope Never Fades,” a book produced in print that was launched successfully at the 40th TÜYAP International Istanbul Book Fair with student participation from the Darüşşafaka High School and Ankara Anatolian High School on November 3, 2023.
Each award-winning student at the Book launching event received a copy of the book in print.

Bircan expressed that the video program of 2023 sets out as an example that the 2025 Award Ceremony also will be produced as a television program, along with the majority that including overall excellence, first and second place award received pieces will be compiled towards producing as in a book project in print in late 2025 or 2026.

Following her presentation, Bircan invited Dr. Serpil Tunçer, a Board Member of the Darüşşafaka Society, who was also an honorary speaker at the #HopeNeverFades Book Launching event at TUYAP in Istanbul on November 3, 2024. Dr. Tunçer congratulated Bircan for the selection of the “Water Decade Action” as the dedication theme for 2025, and the responsibility of all nations to ensure sustainable and healthy ecosystems for human survival. 

Dr. Tunçer briefly talked about students of Darüşşafaka’s involvement in the 2021 & 2023 J.U.C. Awards and book launching event, then expressed Darüşşafaka High School’s willingness to join in 2025 as a participating school as well.

Bircan acknowledged the contributions of the Student Coordinators for 2023 thanked them, and indicated that participating students in the project also can become student coordinators for the next one in his/her city/country/region as Sude Çapoğlu, the First-Place Award recipient in the 2021 J.U.C. Awards / Writing Category, was the Student Coordinator for 2023. In the same line, the First-Place Award recipient of the 2023 J.U.C. Awards in the Writing#Türkiye100 category, now Duru Büyükbaşaran is the moderator of this session and the student coordinator for 2025.
In her conclusion, she strongly encouraged attendees to be involved with the project in their interested category including becoming participating schools, contributing organizations, and/or volunteer student coordinators as well.

Then, moderator & Student Coordinator Duru introduced both the continuing and new student coordinators for 2025 who made initial commitments including herself (Türkiye), Lyonga Jervis (Cameroon), R.A. Rukhshana (2023, Media, Second Place, India), Deepak Kumar (2021, Media, Third Place, India); and also welcomed to Whyteleafe Performing Arts Academy based in Sri Lanka, Fabrice Kaburugutu, and thank them to joining the project in the Contributing Organizations category based in Burundi and Africa. [*IGEN]

Following her presentation, the moderator Duru conducted a brief interview with her based on the Guidelines of the 2025 J.U.C. Awards. The interview is available here.

Participants of the session were from Burundi, Zambia, Fransa, Türkiye, Sri Lanka, the United States, and Zambia. The session received nearly 50 registrations.

Both Bircan and the moderator emphasized the submissions to be emailed along with the Consent Forms based on one of the suggested themes on the Water Action Decade to be submitted before or latest by the deadline of OCTOBER 31, 2024.

In her conclusion, Bircan encouraged everyone to participate in the next 2025 J.U.C. Awards in various capacities. She informed the guests of the session that the awardees will be announced in March 2025 in connection with World Water Day, and shared the link to the full 2025 Guidelines.

The session concluded by thanking Dr. Dahlia Sabri, Dr. Serpil Tunçer, Whyteleafe Academy, Fabricia Kaburugutu, and all guests of the session.

_ . _

INTERACTIVE SESSION >
Interview with Bircan Ünver on the Guidelines of the 2025 J.U.C. Awards
Conducted by Duru Büyükbaşaran

Bircan Ünver’s PowerPoint Presentation based on the Guidelines of the 2025 J.U.C. Awards

[*] President of the Institution of Green Engineers | IGEN, Prof. L. Ramesh confirmed the following day that his organization will be a contributing organization as it was for 2023.

#JUCAwards, #JUCMRWA2025, #JUCAwards2025, Bircan Ünver, Duru Büyükbaşaran,  #International, #HighSchools, #Youth, #Media, #DigitalArt, #Research, #Writing, #Innovation, #Youth, #Creativity, #Inspiration, #Lightmillennium, #LMGlobalOrg, 

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