Painting a beautiful world: a children's art story

While children are the least responsible for the environmental degradation, they are likely to inherit a tremendous burden of land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate crisis unless we take the urgent action to address these challenges.

Children across the world – whether in Bhutan or Barbados, India or Namibia – have beautiful dreams of what the world should be, now and in the future. The UNCCD Capacity Development and Innovations Office is launching a project "Painting a beautiful World: A children's art story," inviting children to visualize how they feel (and why) about the land they inhabit.

We invite children to harness their imagination and artistic gifts to draw pictures of nature, animals, their families, and the surrounding landscapes, highlighting the vital role of healthy land. We hope that the children’s art will carry the messages of environmental awareness while showcasing the uniqueness of cultures, regional landscapes and languages. Through art, the children can express their dreams of the world they want and portray solutions to help achieve a better life on Earth.

The deadline for submissions is 19 June 2023.

Campaign objectives

The main goal of the project is to raise children's awareness on the importance of protecting the land and the environment, so that they can:

• Appreciate the great significance of land in their daily lives
• Become future stewards of healthy land
• Connect with other children in the common quest to protect the land
• Gain greater awareness of the importance of sustainable development to ensure a secure future for the children of the world

We also hope to facilitate an active dialogue between children and adults on environmental stewardship and the need to create a secure future together.  

Rules

Format for submissions:

1. A hand-drawn illustration in crayon, paint, pencil, pen or any other color medium
2. The maximum size of the finished artwork should be A4
3. Participation is FREE and open to an individual child or group of children of the same school
4. Individual participants may submit up to two pieces of artwork, groups are allowed to submit one piece
5. Participants must be between 6 years and 12 years of age by the submission deadline 
6. The artwork must be the original work of the participant(s), not published previously
7. The submission of each participant or group of participants must be approved by a parent, teacher or a guardian
8. All drawings must be submitted through this link, in a gif, jpg, jpeg or png format scanned from the original artwork created by hand
9. The participants grant the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), its partners and other UN agencies, as well as other persons or entities authorized by the Secretariat, a free-of-charge, non-exclusive, irrevocable, transferable, perpetual, worldwide right to use the copyright, related rights or any other intellectual property rights in accordance with existing law or that may arise by law concerning the submitted drawings
10. The UNCCD is entitled to publish the drawings while carrying no obligation to do so
11. If an entry is considered for an award, the intended awardee will be asked to submit proof of age
12. All entries and the participants' details (name, age, school or town) may be used in publicity campaigns by UNCCD

Participation in this exercise means full acceptance of all rules stated above.

Selection process

All submissions will be evaluated by the UNCCD Capacity Development and Innovations Office, which will grant awards of 50 euros each for the submissions considered the six best. 

Special awards of 100 euros with be given to the school submissions considered the three best.

All participants will receive certificates of recognition.