Exhibition Page

ONLINE PRESS RELEASE AND OTHER RESOURCES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 5, 2015
Additional images available

CONTACT:
Greg Svitil | T: 202.370.0147
[email protected] | AMAmuseum.org

Bring Our Missing Children Home
OJJDP’s Missing Children’s Day Poster Contest

OAS  | AMA F STREET GALLERY
Organization of American States
1889 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006


Opening reception (no appointment necessary)
Wednesday, October 7 from 6-8pm
With remarks by Ambassador Nestor Mendez, OAS Assistant Secretary General and Jim Antal, Acting Associate Administrator of Youth Development, Prevention, and Safety Division Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention  

On view
October 7-November 6, 2015
By appointment only, Mon-Fri from 9am to 5pm
Please call 202-370-0151

The OAS AMA | Art Museums of the Americas is proud to partner with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to host this exhibition of winning entries from the National Missing Children’s Day Art Contest. OJJDP began the contest in 2000 to raise awareness about missing children. With an annual theme of “Bring Our Missing Children Home,” the Missing Children’s Day Poster Contest provides teachers with tools to educate children and parents about safety and initiate conversations regarding prevention. Students create posters that reflect the contest theme and submit an application describing their poster and the importance of collaboration in bringing missing children home.

For the 2015 National Missing Children’s Day Poster Contest, 51 entries were received by OJJDP. Submissions represented 48 states (including the District of Columbia), Guam, Saipan and Royal Air Force Lakenheath in England. Securing the second highest number of submissions to date. This year’s contest success is attributed to the partnerships established by OJJDP and the common mission of protecting our nation’s children. Fostering these partnerships has allowed OJJDP to expand on the poster contest’s mission of raising awareness about child safety and engaging communities in discussions about the prevention of child abduction by reaching more communities throughout the United States. This year the OJJDP and AMA -whose director Andres Navia participated as one of the judges- collaborated to host the exhibit of current and past original national winning artwork.

The OAS Inter-American Children’s Institute (IIN) joined AMA in supporting this exhibition at the OAS F Street Gallery. Since 1927, the Institute has addressed issues related to children and their families, taking a rights-based approach to support the elimination of problems such as the disappearance and trafficking of children, and aiding in the return of children to their nuclear families. Each year, the U.S. Department of Justice, through OJJDP, recognizes individuals, organizations, and agencies that have made a difference in recovering abducted children and protecting children from exploitation. This work is critical to the present and future of the Western Hemisphere as well as the world as a whole.

AMA is pleased to host Bring Our Missing Children Home as an exhibition whose focus is to alert viewers to the plight of missing children and to support the OJJDP in its solution-driven and preventive work in striving toward a safer world for children and for all people.

For more information on the contest, please visit: http://www.ojjdp.gov/missingchildrensday/