HOUSTON, August 16, 2012 – United Airlines and Amigos de las Américas (AMIGOS) are proud to announce the Grand Prize winner of the 2012 United Latin America Photo Contest. This photo contest, not to be confused with the 2012 photo contest for  AMIGOS participants, was open to hobby and professional photographers from all over the world.  17-year-old Ben Weiss of Madison, Wisconsin, took the winning photo titled "A Wedding" in Cusco, Peru where he spent the summer of 2011 as an AMIGOS Volunteer.

Photographers from all over the world submitted their photos to the contest this year. Ben’s photo was chosen by a panel of judges made up of AMIGOS and United Airlines representatives. As the grand prize winner, Ben will receive two round-trip United Airlines tickets to a destination of his choice in Latin America.      

Ben was an AMIGOS Volunteer in rural Peru last summer in a community called Cangalli. He recounts that while working nearby with a fellow AMIGOS Volunteer, he looked up and was surprised to see a large group of people crossing the bridge wearing huge paper mache heads. He grabbed his camera and captured the winning photo. It turned out that the visitors were art students from a neighboring community, preparing for a live theatre production. Ben and his AMIGOS partners befriended the art students and later in the summer invited them to collaborate on a mural painted by the local youth in Cangalli.

Ben has just returned from serving in Morocco as part of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth and hopes to return to AMIGOS next summer as a Project Supervisor.

Ben says he hasn’t yet decided how to use his prize tickets. “I’d like to use them to see more of the world,” he says. “I’m thinking about dong some WWOOFing.” WWHOOFing, as it turns out, is World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, which links volunteers with organic farmers, and helps people share more sustainable ways of living.

In the fall, Ben is headed to Occidental College where he tentatively plans to study Urban Environmental Policy.

Sponsored by United Airlines and AMIGOS, this photo contest was intended to demonstrate the beauty and excitement of the seven Latin American countries where both the airline and the nonprofit group have a presence. This is the eighth annual Latin America photo contest the organizations have sponsored together.