Children send messages on gender equality through the second EuropAid drawing competition – A child from Jordan and Tunisia among winners
Two ten year-olds, Liana Maher Touqan from Jordan, and Mohamed Hédi from Tunisia are among the winners of the second drawing competition on Gender Equality organized by EuropeAid cooperation office that manages EU external aid programmes. A child from Jordan was also among the winners last year, the first time the competition was held.
The encouraging message coming out of the winning drawings is that these children believe men and women are in a position to do the same thing, be it in their professional or personal lives.
The competition aimed at motivating children from the EU’s partner countries to participate in an exercise of awareness on the role of women in society. At the same time, by involving children from the EU countries who made up the jury, it made them think about gender equality.
A record number of drawings, 25,819 as opposed to some 10,000 last year, from 51 countries worldwide were submitted to the competition, launched on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2008, for the second year running. It was open to children between 8 and 10 years old.
Liana’s painting portrays two female doctors taking care of patients, showing that the world of medicine is not exclusive to men. In his drawing Mohamed uses a scale with a man and a woman in it and above it colourful drawings of men and women in different roles and circumstances.
Each child will receive €1000 for its winning drawing, which will also be included in a booklet that will be distributed in the schools of the countries of the region concerned, and the European schools participating in the competition.
The process
The seven Delegations in the Mediterranean partner countries that had participated in the competition, namely Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, had received 382 drawings. After a first selection by the Delegations, EC headquarters chose 10 drawings per region.
At the end, 70 drawings were submitted to the members of the jury, made up of children aged from 8 to 10, the same age as the children competing, attending the European Schools of Brussels I, which gathers the 27 nationalities of the European Union.
In selecting, the children had only one simple, yet most relevant criterion: the drawing that they think best represents gender equality.
The booklet prepared last year, with ten drawings from over 10,000 received, paints a colourful and vivid picture of how children see gender issues and especially the role and status of women in their society. Among them were two children from the Mediterranean region, the one from Jordan and the other from Syria.
“I was very impressed by the many excellent drawings that were sent in for this competition,” External Relations and ENP Commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, says in the preface to the first booklet. Referring to the competition’s message, she says “you, children of today and adults of tomorrow, are the key to making sure that the equality of men and women becomes a reality around the world in the years to come.”
