Father’s fight for nature wins 2014 Japan Prize

A father’s fight to get children to spend more time in nature has won the 2014 Grand Prix Japan Prize.

Project Wild Thing by Green Lions and the BRITDOC Foundation of the United Kingdom tells of a father who is so unhappy that children are hooked on screens that he appoints himself as the marketing director for a brand called Nature. With the help of branding and outdoor experts and psychologists, he makes posters, creates a website and launches a nationwide marketing campaign “Project Wild Thing” to get British children to go outside.

The 2014 Japan Prize International Contest for Educational Media – sponsored by ABU member NHK – received 320 entries from 206 organisations in 62 countries or regions.

Other winners include: Pre-school Category (the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Prize) to Mimicries – The Secret of Black and Yellow from NHK and

NHK Educational Corporation; Primary Category (the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Prize) for Lizard Girl from Feelgood Fiction Ltd of the UK; Youth Category (the Minister of Foreign Affairs Prize) for The Ways to Embrace Imperfection from Daai Satellite TV, Taiwan; Continuing Education Category (the Governor of Tokyo Prize) for Project Wild Thing; Creative Frontier Category (the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Prize) for netwars/out of CTRL from FILMTANK GmbH, MIIQO STUDIOS, ARTE/ZDF, BASTEI LUBBE, Germany.

The Audiovisual Division Special Prizes were: The Maeda Prize for Reel Time: Nebulizer from GMA Network Inc of the Philippines; the Japan Foundation President’s Prize for No Fish Where to Go from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB); the UNICEF Prize for Cinderella of Grade 5 from Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC); the President of NHK Prize for Rabbit and Deer from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Hungary.

In the TV Proposal Division, the Hoso Bunka Foundation Prize for the most outstanding proposal for an educational TV program went to Meerkat’s Adventure from the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), while the Special Prize from the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan went to A Dalit Girl in Baijalpur Village from Media Help Line in Nepal for a proposal that contributes to the diffusion of basic education starting with literacy.