June 16, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – For years, pro-lifers in Canada have had to contend with being muzzled in the media, but according to CLC Youth video contest winner, Peter Hayden, times are changing.
The grade 12 Madawaska Valley District High School student recently won an iPod Touch 8GB in Campaign Life Coalition Youth’s March for Life Viral Video Challenge, a contest that encouraged young people to make videos showing the largest pro-life event in Canada through their own eyes.
“The teenage generation spends most of its time working on computers, surfing the Internet, checking their Facebook etc … we are the first generation to grow up in an era where digital technology is involved in almost all aspects of life and work,” said Hayden. “Most mainstream news networks will not put pro-life videos on their stations, so we must use the internet, where these videos and news items become viewable by everyone. It is getting easier to spread the pro-life message to the world.”
Hayden said he attended this year’s march with 70 other students from his high school from his small town of Barry’s Bay, Ontario. For his involvement in the pro-life movement he credits his father Mark, who “spent time in jail for picketing outside an abortion mill many years ago.”
The young student said he also tries to reach out to his peers by doing various school projects on abortion, to help educate himself and others on the subject. In a recent final project in his Data Management class, he analyzed abortion statistics and said he found “shocking” results.
“Out of the almost 12 million babies born since 1970 in Canada, almost 3 million have been killed by abortion. Everyone under the age of 40 is in a way a survivor of a holocaust, an abortion holocaust that must come to an end.”
Although the future of Hayden’s movie-making career is uncertain, the aspiring film- maker says he intends on going into film production as a director of photography and editor. He currently runs a small, independent company called Wilderland Film Studios; he already has a trip to Rome planned next month to shoot a promotional video for a Benedictine Monastery in Norcia to encourage vocations.
“I encourage more teens and young adults to film as many pro-life events, testimonies, marches and gatherings and put the videos on line as a witness. The future of Canada depends on us.”
To see the video of the second place winner, Michal Stankiewicz, click here.