Dubai: A young environmentalist who writes her own eco blog has had one of her short animation films nominated for the European short film contest www.greengofest.eu.
Of the 100 entries for the competition that is open to people of all ages, Prerna Pai, a grade seven student at Delhi Private School, Sharjah, Pai is the only middle school student from the Middle East to earn a place in the competition.
While most of the other shortlisted candidates are from Europe, she is one of only five people from other continents to have made it to the shortlist. The four others are from Nepal, Singapore, Russia, Brazil, India and the USA.
Pai, who has won international awards writing essays on environmental sustainability stumbled upon this contest by accident. “I was searching for posters that said Go Green for a school environmental project when I came across this website mentioning the contest,” says the tech-savvy 12-year-old.
She decided to download whiteboard animation software and set about making the one-and-a-half minute short film.
“We as a family are very eco-conscious and follow many conservation steps at home that brings down our electricity and water bill to about Dh200 per month. My film focuses on a school student who is shocked to learn that in future there might be a shortage of clean air and water. She tells this to her father who had only focused on saving money for his daughter’s future but never really thought of saving the environment. Now he adopts an eco-sustainable lifestyle and also influences the lifestyle of his neighbours and friends. The moral of the story is that one little girl was instrumental in making one entire community environmental friendly and each of us can do so much to achieve a zero carbon goal to save our earth,” Pai said.
Winning in the category is based on voting. Those who want to see the film can log on to http://greengofest.eu/climatechange/2807 and vote for her until December 19, 4pm (1pm Central European Time).
