Dubai: School students who participated in Dubai Cares’ creative challenge to share their vision of the city by painting a canvas using #MyDubai logo were recognised and honoured at a special ceremony.
The ceremony, which was held on Thursday, honoured all the participating schools and awarded the top nine students who had created a multi-coloured representation of the city using an A3 canvas outlined with #MyDubai logo.
The two-week challenge, conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) as well as the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), was aimed at raising awareness and funds for Dubai Cares programmes in the developing world, whilst enriching the #MyDubai initiative, an initiative launched by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, to promote Dubai.
The Shaikh Hamdan initiative invites residents and visitors to join him in sharing photos, videos and stories of their daily lives in Dubai by using the hashtag #MyDubai with the aim of creating the world’s first autobiography of a city.
Speaking about the role the community has played to support Dubai Cares’ mission, Tarek Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Cares, said, “The universal education which we have managed to provide to 10 million children in 35 developing countries would have not happened without the community’s involvement.”
“In 2014 we thought of bringing the community back in a big event like this one in order to show the world that our students care about and support other less privileged students and want to help them. DTCM had this big initiative going on and we saw a good link between us and came forward with this,” he said.
The challenge was said to have attracted 4,223 entries from 75 private and public schools around the UAE, which were then submitted to an independent panel composed of Emirati artists.
Essam Kazim, Chief Executive Officer of DTCM, said the purpose of the challenge was to showcase the different views of those students who interact with Dubai on a daily basis while also “doing everything it takes to support Dubai Cares’ initiative, which aims to give an opportunity to less privileged individuals”.
On the same day, Marwan Al Saleh, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education, and Fatima Ganem Al Merri, Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Schools Agency, thanked the students for volunteering and showing the world that they care about others and to also continue to support such projects in the future.
“This project doesn’t only promote Dubai but promotes the values of caring and giving and this is the culture that we must continue to spread across society,” said Fatima.
