AMMAN (JT) - Ten-year-old Liana Maher Touqan from Jordan is among the winners of the second drawing competition on Gender Equality organised by the 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, according to a statement released by the organisers.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 was designed to motivate 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, the statement said.
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 eight and 10 years old.
Touqan's painting portrays two female doctors taking care of patients, showing that the world of medicine is not exclusive to men. The second winner from the region, Mohammad Hédi from Tunisia, depicts a scale balancing a man and a woman, with colourful drawings of men and women in different roles and circumstances above it.
The delegations in Mediterranean partner countries which participated in this year's competition - Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia - received 382 entries for the contest and made an initial selection, after which EC headquarters chose 10 drawings per region.
A total of 70 drawings were submitted to the members of the jury, made up of children aged between 8 and 10 attending the European Schools of Brussels I, which gathers the 27 nationalities of the European Union, the statement said.The panel had one simple, yet most relevant criterion: The drawing that best represents gender equality.
Winners will receive 1,000 euros each for their drawings, which will also be included in a booklet that will be distributed in the schools of the relevant regional countries and the European schools participating in the competition.
Last year's booklet, with 10 drawings chosen from over 10,000 entries, 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, one from Jordan and the other from Syria.
In the preface to the first booklet, External Relations and ENP Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner says: "I was very impressed by the many excellent drawings that were sent in for this competition... 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."
© Jordan Times 2008
