Bayer and United Nations Name Student Winners of Annual International Children's Painting Competition on the Environment
Bayer-Sponsored Exhibition Displays 50 Paintings as Part of North American World Environment Day Activities in Sarasota
SARASOTA, Fla., June 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Jiade Guo, a ninth-grader at Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada took the top North American prize in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 23rd annual International Children's Painting Competition on the Environment (ICPC). ICPC is sponsored by Bayer Corporation in North America.
The first place winner was honored at the Diane Roskamp Gallery at Ringling College of Art and Design as Bayer Corporation and UNEP unveiled the 2014 ICPC Exhibition to herald World Environment Day (WED) celebrations in Sarasota County, this year's North American host community. The 50-picture exhibition opens on June 5th (WED) and runs through June 24, 2014.
Jiade's painting, which addresses the theme "Wasting our Food is Wasting our Planet," depicts the Earth literally drowning in unwanted food. Selected from 344 submissions from 16 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces, it conveys how an individual's choices about excess food can affect people's lives and result in a tremendous loss of the world's resources.
Also honored at the Sarasota exhibition were second-place winner Sami Khan, an eighth-grader at Thorton Junior High School in Fremont, Calif., and Sarasota's Best winner, Andrew Alexander Torres, a fifth-grader at Samoset Elementary School.
"Every year, we are dazzled at how creatively these students express their ideas, insights and concerns about serious environmental issues and their deep commitment to protecting our Earth today and for future generations," said Sarah Toulouse, head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Bayer Corporation and executive director, Bayer USA Foundation. "And it demonstrates exactly what we hope to accomplish with our partner UNEP – fostering environmental education and awakening the next generation of socially responsible citizens."
"It has been UNEP's pleasure to partner with Bayer here in North America these past eight years on WED and particularly ICPC. This year's paintings truly captured the disconnect between the number of individuals who go hungry in our world versus the staggering amounts of food we waste globally," said Patricia Beneke, Director of UNEP's Regional Office for North America.
"In industrialized nations like the U.S. and Canada, grocery stores and individuals alone discard around 300 million tons of food that is still fit for consumption. This amount would be sufficient to feed the estimated 900 million people hungry in the world," she added.
Jiade's first-place award included a $1,000 cash prize, the trip to Sarasota for WED and an all-expense paid trip for him and a chaperone to the global ICPC Award Ceremony scheduled to take place in Nairobi, Kenya on June 25, 2014 during the first ever United Nations Environment Assembly. While there, Jiade will join the first place winners from UNEP's five other global regions. This year, more than 69,000 paintings from 78 countries were received.
The ICPC is a signature event of UNEP's annual World Environment Day celebrations. The ICPC Exhibition at the Diane Roskamp Gallery at Ringling College of Art and Design is part of Bayer Corporation's sponsorship of the World Environment Day Youth Programs in Sarasota County. In North America, Bayer Corporation's partnership with the UNEP Regional Office for North America (RONA) brings ICPC to communities across the U.S. where Bayer, through its Making Science Make Sense® program, has partnerships with local school districts.
The gallery is open free to the public Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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About Bayer Corporation and Making Science Make Sense®
Bayer Corporation is a subsidiary of Bayer AG, a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. As an inventor company, Bayer sets trends in research-intensive areas. Bayer products and services are designed to benefit people and improve the quality of life. At the same time, Bayer aims to create value through innovation, growth and high earning power. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development and acts as a socially and ethically responsible corporate citizen. In fiscal 2013, Bayer employed 113,200 people at year-end and had sales of €40.2 billion. In North America, Bayer had 2013 net sales of €9,680 million ($12,874 million) and employed 15,200 at year-end. For more information, go to www.bayerus.com.
Making Science Make Sense® (MSMS) is Bayer's company-wide initiative that advances science literacy through hands-on, inquiry-based science education, employee volunteerism and a public education campaign. Currently, 12 Bayer sites around the U.S. operate local MSMS programs, which together represent a national volunteer corps of more than 1,000 employees. For more information, go to www.bayerus.com/msms.
About the International Children's Painting Competition on the Environment
Established in 1991 and organized annually by partners UNEP, Bayer, Nikon and the Foundation for Global Peace and the Environment, the ICPC invites elementary and middle school students, ages six to 14, to learn about the environment and express that knowledge creatively through art. Since its founding, more than three million paintings from children in more than 150 countries have been submitted. Each year, regional winners are selected from UNEP's six regions including North America; Africa; Asia and the Pacific; West Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; and Europe.
About the United Nations Environment Programme and World Environment Day
Established in 1972 following the United Nation's Conference on the Human Environment, UNEP's mission is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. World Environment Day is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates world-wide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action. With thousands of events in the six UNEP regions, World Environment Day is considered the largest environmental event of its kind.
About the UNEP Regional Office for North America
The mission of UNEP's Regional Office for North America (RONA), which is located in Washington, D.C. and comprises Canada and the United States, is: to build support in the region for UNEP's work; to promote effective responses to international environmental challenges; and to foster cooperation on environmental issues between North America and the broader international community. To achieve this mission, RONA's strategy is to promote collaboration between UNEP and all sectors of North American society, including U.S. and Canadian governmental institutions, the private sector and civil society groups, and to provide UNEP with North American perspectives. For more information on UNEP RONA, go to: www.unep.org/rona.
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