Maui High Takes Highest Honors in ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange Video Competition

Maui High School and Mid-Pacific Institute captured the highest honors at yesterday’s awards gala for the 14th Annual ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange Statewide Student Video Competition.

Fourteen schools on Maui were finalists in the 14th annual ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange video competition. Maui Now stock photo.

Students from Maui High School took the Expert category with “Women in Technology” and Mid-Pacific Institute students won the Junior Expert category with “Make a Wish Come True.”

For their Expert and Junior Expert wins, Maui High School and Mid-Pacific Institute were presented with commercial-grade Sony SLR video cameras and 24-70 mm lenses with a combined value totaling over $2,400 each.

An additional 48 high-definition Sony digital video cameras (valued at $650 each) were awarded to each of the winners in the three age divisions in the 16 other categories of competition.

Winning videos were created by students who attend public, charter and private schools all across O‘ahu, Hawai‘i Island, Kaua‘i and Maui counties.

Since its inception, ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange has awarded over 600 video cameras to schools throughout Hawai‘i.

The seven broad categories of the 2017 competition included animation, mini-documentary, news, public service announcement, short, Expert and Junior Expert.

The 11 sponsored categories this year included Clean Energy Future, Creating Peace, Fight the Bite, Forest Health Hawai‘i, Mā̄lama Honua, Start Living Healthy, Storm Water Hero, Taking Assessments Seriously, The Value of Water, Traffic Safety and Vote to Rise.

Students in ‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange competed in three age divisions: elementary, intermediate and high school. Previous winners and students with professional experience compete in the Junior Expert (kindergarten through middle school) and Expert (high school and college) categories.

‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange judges selected winners based on subject impact and technical production. The panels included local news media, filmmaking professionals and, in the case of sponsored categories, subject experts.

Two other Maui schools won this year including Montessori School of Maui and Maui Waena Intermediate.

Maui Waena won in the animation category for their video, “Disability Does Not Mean Inability,” and in the Mā̄lama Honua category for their video, “Mā̄lama Honua.” Montessori School of Maui won in the Short category for their video, “Mission to Mars.”

To view the full list of winners click here.

The gala will be re-aired on Channel 53 on May 10, at 7 p.m., May 14, at 10 p.m., May 15, at 3 p.m. and May 21, at 8 a.m on ‘Ōlelo. The cablecast will also be made available for viewing starting May 21, on ‘Ōlelo Video On-Demand Channel 52, at www.youtube.com/olelocm and on olelo.org/olelonet.

‘Ōlelo Youth Xchange was developed to help give island keiki a voice to tell stories in a variety of video formats and about subjects that are meaningful to them.