Unfiltered Youth Voice Essay Contest

Unfiltered Youth Voice Essay Contest Guidelines

The Unfiltered Youth Voice Essay Competition, established by FCSS-FESC and in partnership with CBC Kids News, aims to empower the voices of Canadian youth by serving as a platform for secondary students to to express ideas, values and concerns regarding social justice and youth life.

Essay Prompt

The Unfiltered Essay Contest will invite secondary students from across Canada to write a 600-700 word essay that reflects on the following prompt:

"Think about a time when you experienced something that felt unfair, frustrating or confusing—maybe it was something that happened at school, at your job or in your community. Then, step back and show us how that one personal experience is representative of a bigger social justice issue in the world, such as unfair rules, stereotyping or lack of access to resources. We are looking for essays that use your personal story to help readers understand the bigger picture."

Essay Guidelines

  • Eligibility: In grades 9-12 in a Canadian secondary school (or the provincial equivalent) at time of submission

  • Use of AI and plagiarism is prohibited; submissions will be checked for originality

  • Title page with name, grade, school 

  • Font: times new roman, size 12

  • Double spaced

  • Sources e.g. research, numbers, etc, if used, must be cited and credited (MLA style)

    • Citations will not count toward the word count 

  • All submissions will be through Paperform (see below)

    • File type permitted: PDF 

  • Permitted languages: English

  • In addition to these guidelines, all submissions must adhere to CBC’s journalistic standards and practices to be considered for publication

Submissions.

Submit your writing here: Unfiltered Essay Competition Submission by March 26th, 2026 by 11:59 AM ET.

Workshop.

A workshop hosted by FCSS-FESC, with guest CBC producers, will be held on Tuesday, March 17th from 6:00 to 7:00 pm ET to support students in developing quality essays. The link to this workshop will be distributed on our social media and on this page closer to the date.

Judging.

  1. FCSS-FESC and CBC will each provide 3 judges to evaluate essays on a standardized rubric

  2. A pre-screening round done by the 3 FCSS-FESC executive judging panel for the essays, then the top 10 will be jointly evaluated by all 6 judges

  3. The standardized metric for FCSS-FESC judging will include:

    • Originality and creativity

    • Relevance to contest theme

    • Use of language

    • Persuasiveness

Awards.

Top essays will be featured on FCSS-FESC’s social media and website, and may be selected by CBC to be published on cbckidsnews.ca.

Important Dates

March 9, 2026: Submission Period Opens

March 17, 2026: FCSS-FESC x CBC Kids News Essay Writing Workshop

March 26, 2026: Submission Period Closes

Mid-April: Participant Update

Early May: Winners Announced

Past Winners.

The winning submission in FCSS-FESC’s 2021 Beyond the Page essay contest was Jacqueline Chen, a Grade 11 student in the TOPS Program at Toronto's Bloor Collegiate Institute. Read her article, When Exercise Was Taking Over My Life, This Is How I Forged a New Perspective, published on CBC News here.

Runners up.

What 2020 Had in Store for the World by Elaine Nie

Online Learning in The World of COVID-19: A Blessing and A Curse by Christina Li

Learning Virtually: A Global Pandemic Dilemma by Irham Khimji

Redefining Education During a Pandemic by Hamidah Moyosoreoluwa Oderinwal