Cross-Provincial Award Ceremony of the 2012 drawing competition on “Water”

On Saturday, 17th of November 2012, the Vietnamese-German technical cooperation project, “Management of Natural Resources in the Coastal Zone of Soc Trang Province” hosted the cross-provincial award ceremony of this year’s drawing competition on the topic “water”. After the ceremony the pupils participated in a “rally for the environment” around the freshwater lake in Soc Trang city, where they had to solve different tasks such as answering environmental quiz questions, blind drawing of aquatic species, a swan race and a charade. 

The four GIZ projects “Management of Natural Resources in the Coastal Zone of Soc Trang Province”, “Adaptation to Climate Change through the Promotion of Biodiversity in Bac Lieu Province”, “Poverty Alleviation in Rural Areas” in Tra Vinh Province and “Conservation and Development of Kien Giang Biosphere Reserve”, as part of the new ICMP/CCCEP programme, in collaboration with the respective Provincial People’s Committees and the Departments of Education and Training, jointly organized a drawing competition for junior high school students in the four Mekong Delta provinces to raise awareness about the importance of water. 

This year more than 238 Junior High Schools in Bac Lieu, Kien Giang, Tra Vinh and Soc Trang have participated in the drawing competition and about 16,000 drawings have been submitted which showed that the pupils carefully thought about the value of water, its uses and benefits, how it affects our daily lives and the consequences of its pollution. The 16 best drawings of the four provinces were awarded and will be published in a 2013-calendar. 

The Mekong Delta is one of the most densely populated areas of Vietnam. It is known for its high agricultural productivity and therefore called the “rice bowl” of the country. The local people living in the coastal zone of the southern Mekong Delta will also be severely affected by the negative impacts of climate change such as increased intensity and frequency of storms and sea level rise. One of the aims of the GIZ projects in the Mekong Delta is therefore to raise the awareness among the local population and local authorities on environmental issues. 

Environmental awareness raising aims at promoting positive change. This can be achieved through behaviour change and communication approaches which recognise that presenting facts alone does not ensure behaviour change. Environmental awareness raising uses a range of communication channels and approaches to facilitate, rather than dictate, change. One of the communication channels already used since 2008 are drawing competitions for pupils. The drawing competition aims at promoting environmental awareness and at encouraging young pupils to creatively express their ideas on environmental topics. 

Source: Our Project Website