Photo: Launching the art competition at St Brigid’s College are, left to right: Peter, Grace, teacher Ciaran Quigley and Jayden.
PUPILS at St Brigid’s College in Derry have helped launch the North West Migrants Forum’s Anti-Racism Art Competition.
A component of the Advancing Race Equality Awards 2024, the contest encourages young people to use their creative talents to send a strong anti-racism message.
The project proved hugely successful last year with a mountain of original paintings, poems and even songs coming in from all over Northern Ireland.
Once again students are being asked to come up with a work that reflects the theme of anti-racism and which showcases unity and diversity.
All forms of visual art including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and digital art are acceptable with two great prizes up for grabs. The winner gets £500 for their school while the runner-up gets £250, again to be spent in an educational capacity.
Speaking following the launch of the competition at St Brigid’s College, North West Migrants Forum Director Lilian Seenoi Barr said she was looking forward to seeing this year’s submissions.
“Firstly can I thank St Brigid’s for helping us launch this year’s competition and no doubt we will see some brilliant submissions from the students there.
“Going back a few years to when we initially launched our art contest, we had no idea what to expect. Anti-racism is a complex topic and we weren’t sure how it would be embraced by young people.
“What our schoolchildren proved to us was that they have an amazing grasp of the issue. They displayed such maturity and it gave us such heart to see how passionate they were about tackling racism but also important themes such as inclusion and diversity.
“We are really looking forward to this year’s competition and to the hundreds of submissions we expect to receive over the coming months. We have two great prizes to be won – £500 for the winner’s school and £250 for second place.
“For us this is the perfect end of year project and a golden opportunity to send out the message that racism has no place in our education system, in our communities or in our society as a whole.”
Full details on how to enter the Anti-Racism Art Competition, what the criteria is and what the prizes are available here via the ‘Awards’ link on the Forum’s website, www.nwmf.org.uk.
If you would like a competition poster to display in your school, drop an email to areawards@nwmf.org.uk.