Two Iranian teenagers received the top prizes in the international section of Japan’s 16th International Environmental Children’s Drawing Contest.
Iran participated in the contest with 25 works and competed with 18,300 drawings from 85 countries, Mehr News Agency reported.
Mahsa Kazemini, 11 years, from Shiraz was one of the winners of the First Prize for her drawing of wind blowing through a wheat field and a woman farmer in colorful local clothes embracing the golden ears of wheat.
Another First Prize winner was 15-year-old Milad Sadeghi from Ardabil, whose powerful drawing of the global destruction of trees won him the prize. His drawing depicted the sorrowful face of a tree, horrified at having witnessed the indiscriminate act of chopping down of its friends, lying dead on the ground.
An Honorable Mention also went to Negin Sadeghian, 11 years, from Isfahan, for her drawing of a village at the foot of a mountain range with girls in traditional dresses playing in the field and birds flying overhead.
Since 1999, Japan Quality Assurance Organization (JQA) and International Certification Organization Network (IQNet) have been hosting the contest for children aged 7 to 15 years from around the world, supported by UNICEF’s Tokyo Office.
Full of imagination and artistic sensitivity, the children so far have drawn pictures about nature and animals, their families and their neighborhood. The pictures also contain messages on global environment, beyond borders and differences in backgrounds, cultures and languages.
The event seeks to provide children an opportunity to think about the global environment, by drawing their inspiration from nature’s bounties. The organizers believe that the efforts to protect the global environment will be further encouraged through the expressions of children’s drawings.
Last year, the contest awarded the First Prize to 10-year-old Fatemeh Mahalati from Kerman and made an Honorable Mention to four other Iranian children.
