E4J initiative organized a creative campaign in response to COVID-19

29 May 2020 - According to the United Nations, school closures in over 113 countries to contain the spread of COVID-19 are disrupting the education of around 849.4 million learners globally. Such unusual circumstances have caused difficulties and limitations.

As a response to the global COVID-19 crisis, UNODC's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative launched a creative campaign for Russian speaking students of all ages targeting specifically Central Asian countries. This campaign aimed to help students to overcome stress and focus on future positive perspectives in these challenging times in which social and physical distancing forces many people to stay at their homes for an extended period of time.

Within the campaign, all interested students were given the opportunity to communicate in a creative way of their choice (essays, drawings, comics created with Zorbify tool, video messages etc.) how they see the world after the end of the pandemic. In this way, students were encouraged to tell about the positive social changes they expect and how they intend to promote the culture of lawfulness in their communities. The deadline for the submission of creative works was 30 April 2020.

By the end of the campaign, the E4J team had received numerous interesting works in different formats, which demonstrated the high aspirations of the participants towards contributing to a more just, sustainable and environmentally friendly world. The submitted materials revealed the eagerness of participants to actively volunteer to support and help their families, friends and communities to overcome the possible negative consequences of social distancing. Moreover, the submissions were full of enthusiasm of the young generation to make the world better for the present and the future.

The global E4J team has identified the best works as per the set criteria and their authors were awarded with an E4J certificate of gratitude and symbolic encouragement prizes. The best works and their authors have been published on the E4J website. UNODC also shared the best works through official social media platforms.

The campaign proved that social distancing during the COVID-19 crisis can also create opportunities and trigger creativity to overcome challenges. So, this creative campaign is one of these opportunities to help students to reflect upon key social values and define their contributions to building a safe, inclusive and sustainable global community.

This competition has been organized under the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative, a component of UNODC’s Global Programme for the implementation of the Doha Declaration.

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Education for Justice