Summer 2024 Writing Challenge Guidelines

Youth Unshackled Ministries (YUM) is excited to announce our Summer 2024 Writing Challenge and would love for you to accept our challenge if you are between the ages of 12 - 18 years old. 

Three prizes will be awarded: 

• First Place -$200 
• Second Place -$150
• Third Place -$75

Guidelines

Contestants must be between the ages of 12 to 18 years old as of June 26, 2024. (Including high school seniors during the 2023-24 school year who may be older than 18 years old) 

Topics: Choose one of the three listed prompts as your essay title. 

NO CRIME DAY WRITING PROMPTS 

There will be three prompts

You may answer only one of three listed prompts. 

PROMPT #1

Everyone wants to live in a so-called "good neighborhood," Why do some communities have little crime while others have crime incidences every day? What would you do to reduce crime in Chicago if you had multiple resources available to you?

PROMPT #2

What do you think are at least three major factors that cause crimes and three factors that could reduce crime in a given neighborhood? (Explain your position)

PROMPT #3

Who is responsible in a community for the increase or decrease of crime in a given neighborhood? (Include at least 3 of the following community people groups: politicians, parents, children, police, churches, social media influences, students, teachers schools,local or national or international organizations, businesses in the community, and gangs,whether within or outside of the community.}

Essay length: be at least 200 words but no more than 300 Words 

Deadline for submission: Monday, July 29, 2024  

Submission:  Email the essay and your parent permission form to:  youthunshackledministries@gmail.com by July 29.2024 

The top three winners of the writing challenge will be notified on August 2, 2024, and publicly announced by August 3, 2023, via the YUM Facebook page and the YUM Website.

Essay Requirements

• Writers must validate their age.
• A parent/guardian form must accompany the essay otherwise the essay will not be considered for assessment. 
• Essays must include the essay question or statement answered, the writer’s name, age, and city/town of the writer.
• Essays will be judged on clarity, coherence, content, and consistency as it addresses the prompt question.
• All essays can not include profane words or derogatory words or phrases. 
• Writers must permit YUM to publish their essays on the Youth Unshackled Ministries Website.  
•  YUM will not share a youth’s street address, email address, or phone number with anyone. If a youth’s writing is selected for publication, YUM reserves the right to publish the piece with the user’s real name, age, and town on the YUM website.YUM expects all essayists to be respectful in their writings. Every effort is made to ensure that all experiences presented are positive ones. It is the responsibility of the parent or guardian to make sure their children are presenting original work and not submitting plagiarized work or computed generated writings. 
• All copyrights are retained by the writer.
• CLICK BELOW TO GO TO THE  PARENT/GUARDIAN PERMISSION FORM.