Member, Cristina Gonzalez, Arts Education Coordinator of Santa Fe Public Schools, alerted us to this opportunity for students to engage with a social justice theme and participate in a statewide contest. Art educators may use this to help students to reach beyond their familiar circles for a chance at wider recognition and to reach beyond their own personal issues to think about the problems facing their community. Please note that all entries will be recognized publicly as part of a virtual exhibition. Deadline for submission is May 1.
From Stella Sommer, NMILC Development Intern:
I am writing to you on behalf of the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center (NMILC) to invite your students to enter our inaugural Design Contest. In case you are not already familiar with our work, NMILC is a 501(c)(3) non profit in Albuquerque that exists to provide free legal help to low income immigrant communities across New Mexico. We offer direct legal services to immigrants and provide education and assistance to folks navigating the immigration system. We are a pillar of the immigrant community here in Albuquerque and have strong partnerships witah many organizations across the state. You may have heard, but DACA is officially back and USCIS has begun accepting applications. We are thrilled for what this means for immigrant students across New Mexico! We have seen a huge increase in requests for services related to DACA in the past few months since this announcement was made, but we know there are many students who are unaware of NMILC or the fact that they may be eligible for free legal services. Pre-Covid, we would have held classroom presentations to share this information. But we wanted to do something more fun this year! In order to introduce ourselves, we are hosting a design contest. The 2021 design contest invites New Mexico middle and high school students to create a graphic design that includes the phrase "Our Community, Our Power." The design must be two dimensional. A panel of judges will review all submissions, and select the contest winners. We intend to have 1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners as well as a People's Choice Award and a Staff Choice Award. One winner will have their design turned into a t-shirt, sticker, and pin (button) that will be distributed by NMILC. All entries will be included in a virtual exhibition hosted on www.nmilc.org and shown on our Facebook page. Additionally, we will choose several to showcase in our Annual Report this fall. A full list of prizes will be announced soon on our website.
HOW TO ENTER:
Entry is open to all New Mexico students grades 7-12.
Go online to nmilc.org/contest
Fill out and submit the entry registration form.
You will then be prompted to download the contest rules and template.
Submit your design to contest@nmilc.org by May 1, 2021.
