We live in a perilous time where we are bound to stay at home, for the safety of ourselves and others. ‘Re Tree Sri Lanka’, an organization that helps mother nature to heal her wounds as well as gives awareness to people about the environment, took a step forward to organize a virtual eco-art competition. As the French painter, Pierre Bonnard said “Art will never be able to exist without nature”, hence art and environment are not two different concepts, it is the one which cannot exist without the other.
Art is indeed a powerful tool of communication as it expresses that which cannot be expressed by words. And so, Re Tree Sri Lanka initiated ‘Imagine Tomorrow’ – Eco art competition where Rotaract Club of University of Colombo Faculty of Management and Finance along with Mission Green Sri Lanka joined them as the official event partners to carry forward this island-wide competition. Senzagro and Thuru organizations extended their support throughout the project as the official mentoring partners which eventually lead to a huge success.
We focused on the age categories of Kids, Teens, and Adults by assigning them three different interesting themes “Don’t trash our future”, “Plastic kills”, and “Trees give life”. As the initial step, the competition was opened for registrations and the team received overwhelming responses from individuals registering themselves day by day from all three age categories.
Furthermore, one of the vital objectives of this initiative was to spread awareness about environment conservation and climate change among people, and accordingly, the team organized a webinar on the topic of “Man vs Nature” and the guest speaker of the session was the CEO of goodppl.com, Mr. Harinda Fonseka. The session was witnessed by more than a hundred participants from kids to adults. He ended up his informational session with his final message being “Involving in environment-related activities is not a competition or showing off to the society, it should align with your capacity and through that ultimately it will add a value to Mother Nature”.
The most awaited part of the competition was the virtual awards ceremony, where the winners were announced. An esteemed panel of judges included Ms. Rafiya Siddeek, Mr. Miller Alexanader, Fazra Siddeek, Mr.Hasanka Padukka who involved in selecting the winners for each age category. A.W Awshaf Ahamed was placed first in the Kids category followed by Ravindi Chamathma and K.M Savidya Anakshi. M.A.Z Raheema secured first place in the teen category where A.B Prabashani Rodrigo secured second place while S. Dinethmee Liyanagama secured the third. M.J Fathima Raaziya was placed first in the adult category followed by R.F Nishra and A.M Fathima Aanisha as second and third place, respectively. The virtual awarding ceremony concluded with the messages from the judges, who congratulated the winners and admired all those who took part in the competition and they pointed out that participation in competitions of this sort is a great opportunity to contribute to nature and spread awareness of this timely topic of environmental conservation.
Last but not least, a big shoutout goes out to the sponsors of the project; Gold Sponsor- Laksiri Seva, Silver Sponsor- Citi Gardens, Bronze Sponsors – Royal Kandy Academy, Ideal IT Solutions, and Hybrid Tech. Thank you for your generous contribution towards making this project a massive success!
Written by:
Written By:
Rtr. Venuri Wijesooriya
(Member 2020/21)
Edited by:
Rtr. Razna Farook
(Blog Team Member – 2020/21)