The World Through Their Eyes

What is KWN?

KWN (Kid Witness News) is a global video education program supported by Panasonic, with the aim of boosting creativity and communication skills and fostering teamwork through video production by children at the elementary, junior high, and senior high school levels.

“Register to participate in KWN 2024 and stand a chance to win a trip to Japan."

Abilities and attributes kids can develop by producing videos

The goal of the KWN program goes beyond just making videos. The experience of making videos on their own helps foster kids’ communication skills and many other abilities.

1. Awareness of social issues By selecting topical issues for their videos, kids are given the chance to think more deeply about the social issues around them and make the issues their own. 2. Awareness of teamwork and role sharing Kids learn to recognize their role within a larger team. The program gets them to realize what actions are required to effectively fulfill their role and enables them to carry out the actions. 3. Communication skills Through the experience of taking on a project as a team, kids improve their communication skills for exchanging and coordinating ideas among themselves. 4. Relationship-building skills Kids learn to tackle an endeavor through understanding themselves and others and cooperating with others. 5. Future-planning skills Kids enhance their ability to apply their hopes and dreams in thinking about how they will live in the future and proactively plan their future. 6. Ability to utilize information The program allows kids to develop their capacity to examine a wide range of information and apply that information to make choices about how they will live in the future. 7. Decision-making ability Kids cultivate the ability to take the initiative and responsibility to make their own decisions and to take positive action on issues that affect them. 8. Local community interest and understanding By making videos, kids deepen their interest in their local community and their desire to make it better. 9. International understanding Exposure to different cultures, values, and customs broadens kids’ perspectives and helps them understand the diversity of views people have around the world. 1. Awareness of social issues By selecting topical issues for their videos, kids are given the chance to think more deeply about the social issues around them and make the issues their own. 2. Awareness of teamwork and role sharing Kids learn to recognize their role within a larger team. The program gets them to realize what actions are required to effectively fulfill their role and enables them to carry out the actions. 3. Communication skills Through the experience of taking on a project as a team, kids improve their communication skills for exchanging and coordinating ideas among themselves. 4. Relationship-building skills Kids learn to tackle an endeavor through understanding themselves and others and cooperating with others. 5. Future-planning skills Kids enhance their ability to apply their hopes and dreams in thinking about how they will live in the future and proactively plan their future. 6. Ability to utilize information The program allows kids to develop their capacity to examine a wide range of information and apply that information to make choices about how they will live in the future. 7. Decision-making ability Kids cultivate the ability to take the initiative and responsibility to make their own decisions and to take positive action on issues that affect them. 8. Local community interest and understanding By making videos, kids deepen their interest in their local community and their desire to make it better. 9. International understanding Exposure to different cultures, values, and customs broadens kids’ perspectives and helps them understand the diversity of views people have around the world.

Mission

KWN is a global hands-on video educational program for students supported by Panasonic. Panasonic aims to contribute to the realization of our philosophy since 1989, for future generations, the program aims to stimulate Children's creativity, build communication skills and encourage teamwork through video production, based on children's point of view , "The World Through Their Eyes."

Global Development

More than 183,450 children around the world have participated in the KWN program since it first began in the U.S. in 1989. Panasonic lends video production equipment to schools for student video productions. Videos created by the students are submitted to an annual countries/regions awards contest, with prizes awarded across multiple categories.

What is KWN

In 2004, an international category was created in the contest for the first time, taking the competition global. In keeping with this growing number of participating countries/regions, the KWN Global Contest has been held annually since 2008. The Global Summit has been held in Tokyo for the winners from each country since 2017 with the aim of deepening cross-cultural exchanges and understanding of social issues. Since 2020, the Global Summit has been held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, connecting participating schools from each country via a live stream from Tokyo.

Program Flow

The theme for the Global Contest is the SDGs. Videos are created from the viewpoints of the children. Among the videos from all over the world, select the Grand Prix winner and other top award winners. There are 3 themes of Communication, Environment and Sports for the Global Contest. Videos are created from the viewpoints of the children. Among the videos from all over the world, winning entries are selected for the KWN Kids Award, KWN Fans Award, and the Panasonic Award.

Video Submission

Video Submission

Awards at the Global Summit

Awards at the Global Summit

Judging Process

Judging Process

The photographs and videos are uploaded onto this website based on prior consent from each Kid Witness News (KWN) participating school as owners.
The KWN participating school can remove their photos and/or videos from this website, by requesting officially to Panasonic Corporation.

KidWitness News GLOBAL

KWN(Kid Witness News) is a global hands-on video education program for elementary and secondary school children, supported by Panasonic.