This year our Inter-school art competition was called "The Essence of a Leopard". We wanted to honour some of the unique leopard qualities that we teach children about on our camps and day trips, such as the role leopards play in maintaining a balanced ecosystem, as a way to develop a greater understanding of how vital nature is to our well-being.
Kirstenbosch Gardens’ amazing Colophon conference room offered beautiful views of the national botanical garden and this is where the panel of judges had the very difficult task of having to choose the winners for this year’s competition. Judges included the enigmatic, Braam Malherbe, who recently spent 92 days at sea rowing from South Africa to South America; the most gracious, Anelevan der Merwe from Bridgestone; the wonderful, Elizabeth Martins, former education project coordinator; the dynamic, Helen Turnbull, Cape Leopard Trust CEO; hard-working environmental educators, Catherine Kühn and Michael Henshall and the current education project coordinator, Hadley Lyners.
After being briefed about the criteria for selection, the judges moved from artwork to artwork using their score sheets to judge the wonderful and very creative artworks. Afterwards, they sat down to view online entries via a looping MS PowerPoint presentation to complete stage 1 of the process.The judges found it very difficult to select their favourites given the outstanding quality of the artworks. Once judges had made their selections, they then moved to stage 2 of the process where they collectively had to decide which of their selections were going to be the final winners. This process was characterised by much debate and motivation from everyone involved. It was definitely a daunting task, to say the least. Finally, after much deliberation, the winners were chosen.
All winners have been notified individually and will be preparing for their fully sponsored camp in the beginning of September of this year. The winners and the runner-ups will have their artwork displayed in the CLT 2018 calendar and in addition, they will receive a calendar for themselves and their schools when the environmental educators will do a presentation about leopards and human-wildlife conflict at their schools. Winning artworks will be put up for auction at a Cape Leopard Trustauction event towards the end of the year in 2017.
The Cape Leopard Trust Education Project wishes to thank Bridgestone SA for making all of this possible through their sponsorship of the competition, the judges for availing their time and energy, Kirstenbosch Gardens for hosting the competition, all the Cape Leopard Trust supporters out there,the parents, teachers and mentors of the artists and last, but not least all the brilliant, young artists for their entries. We are constantly amazed at the talent that our youth have and realise that we have to continue investing in our youth since they are our leaders of the future.
We look forward to our next competition in 2018. Thank you for taking the time to read this article.Enjoy the pictures!
Regards,
Hadley Lyners, Education Project Coordinator
Email: [email protected]
