
Me, My Culture and NSW
Competition

Winners
announced
1st Prize _ $300
2nd Prize - $200
3rd Prize - $100
Highly Commended - $50
Proudly funded by

Me, My Culture and NSW
Woke has had the privilege of being funded by Multicultural NSW to create the ‘Me, My Culture and NSW’ competition. Our aim was to give an opportunity for young people to celebrate diversity, share their culture and join us in combating cultural stereotypes and racism. We can definitely say that we have achieved this!
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Our competition was a huge success! We had hundreds of participants, whose entries were extremely insightful and of the upmost quality. We received so many outstanding entries and as the calibre of submissions was so high, we have created two new categories: Highly Commended and Honourable Mention.
We also want to take this opportunity to invite any young person who’s passionate about social justice to write for Woke. Have a look at our writing guidelines and don’t hesitate to contact us via our email ourwoke@gmail.com, we’d love to hear from you!
Now, we’re excited to announce the winners of the competition below!
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Writing

Writing - Shortlisted entries recognised by the editors
The Editors of Woke have further recognised the following work for their amazing merit as well!
Photography

Film

Fairfield High School's (Intensive English Centre) Poems
We would also like to congratulate Fairfield High School - Intensive English Centre for being the school with the most submissions. Many of the poems we received were from recently arrived migrant and refugee students from all around the world, and we would like to share their emotions and experiences. They are beautiful to read.
Strive for happiness
My heart was upset like the night sky without stars
Leaving my country was a nightmare
My destiny tossed me across the oceans
Scared to begin in a new country
Looking across Australia’s blue ocean
My dreams hugs me closer
Rays of the sunshine filled my soul in hope
My hope was like a lifeboat to me
I thought that music was only friend, but I found a friend
I don’t grieve about the past
Australia became my most beautiful sunshine star in the night sky
I believe life always hands me a new chance to shine bright like a star
By Natalia Yousif
My Culture poem
My culture is sharing and caring
My culture is unfair
My culture is the smell of dolma seducing you
My culture is following and protesting a rotten government
My culture is dancing khiga as a uniting dance
My culture is living in its worst days
My culture is a blinding amount of generosity
My culture is a melody
My culture is the taste of meat and bread in every meal
My culture is slowly shrinking around the world
But my culture will never die