Mikas Matsuzawa, a UP Diliman student taking Journalism is one of the twelve (12) winners of an international photography contest “The Democracy Photo Challenge 2010” organized by the State Department. She submitted a photograph of a young boy in school uniform, carrying a (parol) Christmas lantern as a school project, walking to school along a narrow dirt road lined with dense foliage and riddled with puddles. A proud Pinay, she said the boy in the photo is from the Dumagat tribe in the mountains of Eastern Rizal who along with other children had to walk for about two hours, some of them barefooted, just to get to the nearest school.
Matsuzawa said that the education in the Philippines should be like Democracy… for everyone but unfortunately it appears not. Matsuzawa mentioned her own school, UP as an example. Though UP is the country’s premier state institution for tertiary education, the yearly budget cut is depriving the students to a better education. The Democracy Photo Challenge shows the power of 21st century technology in engaging people from across the globe in meaningful conversations,” said Moustafa Mourad, Interim President of One Economy Corporation. “This exchange of ideas and cultures is at the heart of democracy."
Three thousand (3,000) entries from one-hundred thirty-one countries participated and were narrowed to thirty-six (36) finalists representing each region in the world. The thirty-six (36) finalists’ entries are then presented online and five-hundred thousand (500,000) people joined to decide the top twelve winners which Matsuzawa is one of them. This pinay student must be very lucky then! For more information about Democracy Photo Challenge please click here and the pictures of the eleven winners please click here.
Information and picture source from: Digital Photographer and Yahoo Philippines
