The Nineteenth International Children’s Painting Competition on the Environment
– regional winner for Latin America and the Caribbean
This year the theme of this Competition was Biodiversity: connecting with Nature.
Children aged 6 -14 were invited to focus on our beautiful earth, full of different life forms
and what we can do to protect it through art. This year’s painting competition attracted
558,216 entries from 88 countries. In Latin America and the Caribbean 10, 761 entries
from 17 countries participated in this competition, been selected as regional winner
Enrique Suarez Estrada, 10 years old, from Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.
This annual competition is jointly organized by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), the Japan-based Foundation for Global Peace and Environment
(FGPE), Bayer and Nikon. The painting competition has been held since 1990 and in
that time has received over a million entries from children in over 100 countries.
Each UNEP Regional Office (Bahrain, Bangkok, Geneva, Panama City, Washington DC,
and Nairobi) chooses regional winners and submitted 1,629 paintings to the global
selection. The selection of the global winners will be made by a Jury comprised of
representatives of all the organizers. These global winners will be announced in October
2010 at the TUNZA International Children’s Conference in Nagoya, Japan.
All regional and global winners will receive a cash prize (US$ 1,000 for the regional
winners, US$ 2,000 for the First prize winner). The regional and global winners will also
receive an all expense paid trip to TUNZA International Children Conference in Nagoya,
Japan from 20 to 26 October.
A selection of winning paintings will be shown in exhibitions around the world. They will
also be exhibited on the Internet and will be used for posters, post cards, calendars, and
in publications to raise awareness and actions to conserve biodiversity
The International Children’s Painting Competition on the Environment is part of UNEP's
TUNZA strategy for children and youth. TUNZA is a word in Kiswahili that means to
“treat with care”. The programme aims to increase young people’s involvement in
environmental issues through environmental activities such as Plant for the Planet,
International Conferences and Global Youth Gatherings.
Messages from the organizers:
Foundation for Global Peace and Environment (FGPE)
Children’s artworks attract us with their cheerful expression of beautiful nature and
ecosystem. On the other hand, they show the suffering of creatures living in a polluted
sea or a depleting forest as their own pain, and straightforwardly appeal the crisis of
biodiversity. They awake us that we, human beings, are just one of the millions of
species, a weaving thread of a fabric made of lives. We hope children’s works will strike
much more people around the world, and encourage them to take actions for future
generations live in harmony together on the one and only planet earth.
Bayer:
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"We are very proud of the again increasing number of entries for our Painting
Competition - a core element of our partnership with UNEP. The children's paintings are
fascinating artworks with a very clear message to all of us: Care about this planet! We
must take the concerns and wishes of the many children from all over the world very
seriously. I can just encourage everybody to have a look at these impressive paintings",
says Michael Schade, head of Corporate Communications at Bayer.
Nikon:
“The rate of biodiversity loss has been increasing day by day. Now we must deal with
people around the world to cooperate to prevent this. It is very important that people
around the world understand and share this problem. Nikon wants to appeal, together
with the partners, on the importance of conservation of biodiversity to people through the
children’s paintings, and hope they will start taking an action to save the biodiversity.”
says Yoshimichi Kawai, Director, Member of the Board and Executive Officer at Nikon
Corporation.
For more information, please contact:
Mara Murillo, Deputy Director UNEP ROLAC: (+ 507) 305 3100; mara.murillo
@unep.org
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