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2025 Youth Award submissions deadline:
May 31, 2025
Note: the 2025 Youth Award is also open to youth Indigenous story tellers attending Grade 11 or 12 within the Surrey School District. Two prizes of $300 will be awarded to the selected Indigenous authors for their stories. Two additional prizes of $200 will be offered to the Punjabi student who translates the work from English into Punjabi. Stories will be published in the Lofty Heights anthology. Please click here to submit Indigenous-authored stories and review eligibility guidelines. DEADLINE MAY 31, 2024!
The American / British poet and essayist T.S. Eliot wrote:
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.
See below for Youth Award application form.
The Dhahan Prize Youth Award is an initiative created by The Dhahan Prize in partnership with B.C. secondary schools, in particular, L.A. Matheson Secondary of the Surrey School District. The purpose of this unique creative writing award is to encourage the youth of B.C. to embrace the rich Punjabi culture of the generations of families who have immigrated to Canada, specifically in British Columbia, through creative writing in the Punjabi language.
It has long been the desire of The Dhahan Prize to include a youth-specific creative writing prize. In 2017, this desire came to life with the Dhahan Prize Youth Award. The 2017 inaugural project was a great success with 29 qualifying entries submitted from 6 different schools.
The 2017 presenting sponsor, Coast Capital Savings, has continued to support the Youth Award to this day. Coast Capital Savings is committed to building a richer future for the youth of British Columbia and, as such, have made a wonderful commitment to support the Dhahan Prize Youth Award for ongoing years.
Thanks to Coast Capital Savings, the Dhahan Prize Youth Award hands out eight cash prizes valued at $500 each to distinguished young authors every year (see eligibility guidelines below). Four awards are selected in each of two classifications: (I) Intermediate Skill and (II) Advanced Skill. A jury evaluates the submissions for prize selection.
The eight winning stories are published in a yearly anthology titled, “Lofty Heights,” which is made widely available.
We hope that through the writings of the participants, in Punjabi & English, a greater multicultural understanding will be created among the youth of British Columbia. Our goal is to build bridges between people and communities of various ethnicities.
Eligibility guidelines (Punjabi stories):
The following are the eligibility requirements for Dhahan Prize Youth Award participants:
- Participant must be a student currently enrolled in Punjabi 11 or 12 at a high school in British Columbia.
- Participant must attest that the work they submit is their own original creation.
- Participant must have a teacher sponsor who will confirm their application and verify the work submitted.
The following are the eligibility requirements for Dhahan Prize Youth Award creative writing work submitted:
- Work must be originally written in Gurmukhi (please use Noto Sans Gurmukhi web font, downloadable here) or Shahmukhi (please use Noto Sans Nastaliq Urdu, downloadable here).
- Work must be a short story of 800-1200 words in Punjabi.
- Work must be translated into English; the student author must do the translation.
- Participant must fill out an online application (see below).
- Student must complete all items on the submission checklist, viewable here.
- Both Punjabi and English copies must be submitted in PDF and Google docs format to youth@dhahanprize.com with the subject line formatted as: “DHAHAN PRIZE YOUTH AWARD SUBMISSION – [Full Name] – [Story Title (English)]”.
