Rome, July 30th 2009 Today, Enel Chairman Piero Gnudi presented the awards to the six best short films selected as winners of the international competition We are energy. Over 100 youngsters between 9 and 16, coming from 10 different countries, received their well-deserved recognition as winners of the Enel competition We are energy. The competition is open to children of employees of the power company, which is now an international reality operating in 23 countries in Europe and the Americas.
Now in its fifth year, We are energy involved young people from Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and, for the first time, Russia, Costa Rica, The United States and Spain, together with non-competing guests from Greece and France. Aim of the competition is to teach young generations how to relate to cultures other than their own, offering them a trip abroad and the chance to enjoy this experience together with their peers from other countries. The group of winners, chosen among over 2,000 entrants, includes 24 youngsters from Italy, 16 from Bulgaria, 5 from Costa Rica, 16 from Romania, 17 from Slovakia, 16 from Russia, 3 from the US and 1 from Spain.
The first, interactive stage of the competition was hosted by the We are energy website from which entrants could download the Travel Book, a highly informative guide introducing the main cultural aspects of the countries involved in the competition: their history, geography, climate, customs, music, sport, up to their energy situation. Thanks to this information, the young participants started the learning-through-play experience by participating in a competition that required them to produce their entry on the multiculturality issue, in the form of a picture, a comic strip, a film clip, a collage, a piece of poetry or prose, or even the lyrics of a song.
The national juries selected their local winners while picking up at the same time the groups of young people to take part in the second phase of the project, a two-week stay, from July 18th to August 1st, at the Colle della Trinità hotel in Perugia for a summer camp equipped with sport, games and learning facilities. The youngsters were split up into teams and made a short film on the intercultural theme, with the help of experts from the international film and television academy, Cinecittà NUCT. The quality of the shorts produced the previous year was so high that Enel published them on Youtube and even used them for its own safety training programme, safety being the theme of We are energy 2008.
During their stay in Umbria, the youngsters visited Perugia, Mirabilandia, the Tavernelle di Panicale water-park and the Enel Pietrafitta power station. After todays awarding in Rome, they will go back to the summer camp for the farewell party on Friday July 31st. Once back in their own countries, the young people will share all their experiences at a welcome-home party, to which their parents will be invited to see the competition shorts and the summer school behind the scenes video.