Nepalese Youths Paint for Climate Change

08/11/08

To mark the International Youth Day (IYD) - 12 August 2008, Nepalese youths participated in the painting competition. The theme of painting competition was “Youth and Climate Change: Time for Action”, which was actually adopted from this year International Youth Day theme. Altogether 40 youths from a dozen of colleges of Kathmandu Valley painted their imagination on the blank sheet of paper. Most of the participants were high school and undergraduate students. The event was jointly organized by the United Youth, Youth for Conservation, Student Council of SchEMS (SCOS), Green Youth Network (GYN), Environmental Desk to Elite the Nature (EDEN), and College of Applied Science (CAS). The venue for the event was Sport Hall of Trichandra College, Kathmandu.

I was invited as a judge for the event. I have no strong background in Arts but reason behind my selection as the judge by the organizers must be my involvement in climate change related research activities. It was the doomsday of my knowledge on climate change. I have studied many books, research papers, and articles on climate change, participated and presented papers related to climate change in international conferences and workshops. I stayed two months in alpine region of Nepalese Himalaya for climate change related research. Today, whatever I have learned, observed, experienced will help to select few best pictures. These painting have to reflect the theme “Youth and Climate Change: Time for Action”.

I have to mark all the paintings out of 100 points. My task was to look for climate change theme reflection in paintings. I divided 100 points in to 3 sections - 30 points for artfulness of painting, 40 points for IYD theme, and 30 points for overall message convey by the painting. I observed all the paintings and marked them according to their strength. Most of the paintings convey the message of climate change and role of youths in mitigating the impacts of climate change. I selected few best paintings which are going to exhibit in the various programs. I hope the event and paintings will help to convey the message of this year International Youth Day.