Comic Strip Festival For The Environment Drawing Interest
The third edition of the Comic Strip Festival for the Environment is underway with the official launch held at Institut Français du Laos in Vientiane on Monday.
The festival from October 5-10 is co-organised by the French and German embassies, Institut Français du Laos (IF Laos), GIZ and DVV, with the support of the Franco-German Cultural Fund. This festival aims to highlight environmental issues under the theme “Clean water, clean Mekong,” through various activities and public events with conferences, workshops, meetings, screenings, a comic strip contest and book fair.
Highlight of the festival is the cartoon drawing contest with candidates needing to focus on environmental issues and submit entries to the judging committee before the October 9 deadline.
There are three categories in the contest; children under 12, 12-17 year olds, and adults 18 plus.
The judging committee will select the winners with results announced on the last day of the festival. The guests of honour of the festival and presidents of the jury for the contest are French and German comic strip artists Gaston and Reinhart Kleist.
On the last day of the festival, October 10, from 2-5pm a book fair will be held followed by an awards ceremony for the comic strip contest winners and then closed out by a concert featuring the Frogs and Khao Niao plus a live drawing performance.
Cultural Assistant of IF Laos, Mr Viengkeo Inthavong told Vientiane Times the festival was very important because it shared ideas on environmental protection, water resources and river preservation.
The comic strip contestants’ stories have to highlight problems and s uggest potential solutions dealing with the effects of climate change, plus the importance of environmental protection and sustainable water management.
“This is the third festival with the first being in 2013 and we’ve tr ied to make it different than before. We are holding more activities to bring awareness to environmental issues especially through activities such as the cartoon drawing contest. Anyone interested is invited to join the contest and activities” he said.
Source: Vientiane Times