Young students rewarded in EU artwork contest |23 March 2011

The theme of the contest, organised by the EU, was based on gender equality to commemorate International Women’s Day 2010.

During a short ceremony last week at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ headquarters, the group of young artists from primary schools around the country received their prizes.

This was in the presence of acting principal secretary for foreign affairs Jeannette D’Offay, director-general for schools Odile Octave, first secretary to the EU delegation in Mauritius Cecile Tassin-Pelzer and parents.

The competition is held every year for children aged 8-10 years all over the world, and Seychelles through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted 22 drawings. The theme for 2010 was Gender and Equality, and through their drawings the children expressed their creativity and vision of this topic.

Ten of the 22 drawings were selected and sent to the next round of the competition, which took place in Brussels.

Children all over the world were invited to take part in the competition. In 2010, this involved 49,709 children from 1,641 schools and community centres, and 26,080 drawings were sent to the delegations.

Mrs Tassin-Pelzer said that although no drawing from Seychelles won a prize in the final, they are extremely proud that two were submitted to the jury at the European School of Brussels for the final round. These were done by Georgia Ernesta, aged seven, from Cascade primary school, and Kelly King, aged nine, from La Misère primary school.

As a testimony to their appreciation of the students’ hard work, the delegations of the European Union to Mauritius, Comoros and Seychelles produced Christmas cards for 2010 with the children’s drawings as the cover.


 
As prizes the students received art and stationery materials, and Mrs Octave affirmed that exposure to and creating art are known to enhance students’ creativity and problem solving, as well as improve their performance in their core subject areas.

“Our students should be encouraged to take part in such competitions and be given the opportunity to express themselves through their drawings, as it is an important part of their development,” she added.

Before the ceremony ended, Mrs Tassin-Pelzer told all the students that the new competition for 2011 has already been launched with the topic: “Once upon a time there were a girl and a boy and together they wanted to make the world a better place...”

The deadline to send in entries of drawings is May 20.