Date – Friday 26 March 2010
Time – 9.00 a.m. – 10.30 a.m
Venue – British Council Auditorium
No 49 Alfred House Gardens
Colombo 03
Climate Change is one of the top priority areas and also a strategic priority in the UK and therefore it is at the forefront of the British Council’s international agenda.
As a developing country, Sri Lanka is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its’ tropical regional location. Most of our socio-economic activities are heavily reliant on climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, coastal zone based fishery and water resources.
The British Council believes that the first step is to prevent climate change is getting people to start thinking about climate change as a problem that affects us all, how it is caused and what we all can do to help tackle it.
Norway too always gives priority to environmental conservation in the Norwegian foreign and development cooperation policy. Climate change is one of the most serious environmental challenges facing the world today. Today we know enough about human-caused climate change to take action; the longer we wait, the greater the burdens and costs will be on the future generations.
It is important to make the younger generation aware of climate change related issues and the Royal Norwegian Embassy is happy to be supporting this programme.
With the above facts in mind British Council with the support of the Royal Norwegian Embassy organised a poetry, poster and art competition in 2009 on the impacts of climate change.
This competition was conducted nationwide and was open to all Sri Lankan Citizens between the following age categories of 12 to 14, 15 to 17 and 18 to 20 years. We received over 1250 entries which covered areas such as Jaffna, Batticaloa, Hambanthota Kandy and Colombo. A panel of experts and professionals in climate change, poetry, poster and art judged the competition and selected the winners.
The Awards Ceremony for the distribution of prizes and certificates for the above competition will be held on Friday 26 March 2010 from 9.00 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. at the British Council Auditorium. The Chief Guest Mr. M. A. R. D. Jayatilake, Secretary to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the Guest of Honour Royal Norwegian Ambassador H E Tore Hattrem and other distinguished guests will grace the occasion.
The winning entries and top ten short listed entries under each category will be on exhibition at the venue.
The Awards Ceremony will be followed by a tour of the exhibition.
For more information contact,
Thushara Gunasekera
Assistant Manager Programme Delivery
E-mail: thushara.gunasekera@britishcouncil.org
Tel: 4521583 (Monday to Friday between 9.00 a.m. and 4.30 p.m.)