UNODC “Education for Justice (E4J)” initiative organized creative campaign in response to COVID-19

According to the United Nations, school closure 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 announced the launch of a creative campaign for Russian speaking students of all ages targeting specifically Central Asian countries. This campaign aims 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 contribute in a creative way upon their choice (essay, drawing, comics created with Zorbify tool, video message and etc.) in order to tell how they see the world after the end of the pandemic. As such, 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 submission of creative works was set by 30 April 2020.

By the end of the campaign, the E4J team received a number of 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 are available on the official UNODC E4J website: https://www.unodc.org/e4j/ru/primary/fun-corner/thezorbs/competition.html. 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 the 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 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.