What is Democracy? That is the question more than 900 participants set out to answer through their videos, in response to the Democracy Video Challenge [1]set up by the US Department of State [2] and many other partners, open for participants from all over the world. Through their YouTube channel, people sent in their videos which completed the phrase Democracy is... through animated images, live action shorts or documentaries no more than 3 minutes long. After a selection process, 18 finalists were chosen and the general public voted on the winning 6, one of each geographical region: Western Hemisphere, Europe, Middle East/North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South & Central Asia, East Asia/Pacific.
Economist Hernando de Soto [3] appears in the following video congratulating the winners and thanking all of those who participated:
The winners [4] are:
From Brazil, Anna Carolina dos Santos Israel [5], a film student who shows us that democracy is all about consensus, even between different parts of the same body:
From the United Arab Emirates, Rodin Hamidi [6]is a photographer who shows us how getting democracy can be a process requiring lots of insistence, since the efforts may not be appreciated by those who need it most:
From Nepal, Tsering Choden [7] is a magazine and radio personality who portrays democracy as a communion among people with different concerns and needs:
From Poland, Lukasz Szozda [8], an illustrator who shows us through an animation how Democracy embraces more than just one concept:
From the Philippines, Melissa Angela Verzosa Peñafiel [9], a film-maker, brings us a different perspective on Democracy with a poetic flair: maybe democracy as a word is being overused, and its meaning is getting lost.
And finally, from Zambia we have film-maker Chansa Tembo [10], who succinctly describes democracy as mixture that is much better than the individual ingredients.
We wish all the winners the best of luck and hope to keep up with them as they travel to the USA this coming October.