UN Women, a group within the UN whose mission is to work towards global gender equality, has announced that they’ll be holding a competition for comics about gender equality!
Perhaps they noticed while looking on Tumblr or nearly anywhere else on the Internet that there are tons of people who support gender equality and also happen to have seriously impressive artistic abilities? Unfortunately for our US readers, the competition is only open to residents of EU member nations, but don’t let that stop you from churning out some awesome comics about gender equality anyway. You just can’t win anything, aside from hopefully better equality.
They recommend that you look to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for inspiration, which we all know was a plan mapped out at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 that ended up bringing about total gender equality all over the world…Except the world is crappy and doesn’t work like that, so here we are 20 years later trying to solve the same problems. So get involved! Here are the rules straight from the UN women site:
UN Women together with the European Commission, the Belgian Development Cooperation, and UNRIC is organizing a Comic and Cartoon Competition on Gender Equality.
Show us what comes to your mind when you reflect on women’s rights and empowerment and on the relationship between women and men. Get familiar with the Beijing Conference and its outcome document, the Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action. Seek inspiration for your drawings in the 12 Critical Areas of Concern of the Beijing Platform!
The Competition is open to comic and cartoon artists and art students, from 18 to 28 years old, who are residents of an EU member state.
Please note that your comic or cartoon must be without words.
Prizes:
- One First Prize: 1000 EUR
- One Second Prize: 500 EUR
- Three Third Prizes: 200 EUR each
The five finalists will be invited to Brussels to the Competition awards ceremony in summer 2015. The costs for travel and stay will be borne by the Organising Entities. In addition, the finalists’ and semi-finalists’ drawings will be published in a booklet and may be considered for exhibition as well as for further publication.
Finalists will be selected by a jury composed of professional comic artists, gender equality experts and communication experts:
- Pierre Kroll, Belgian Comic Artist, Member of Cartooning for Peace
- Marlène Pohle, Comic Artist, Vice-President of Federation of Cartoonists Organisations
- Salla Saastamoinen, Director for Equality, European Commission
- Alexander de Croo, Minister of Development Cooperation of Belgium
- Sylvie Braibant, Editor-in-Chief TV5MONDE
- Nanette Braun, Chief of Communications and Advocacy, UN Women
The submission deadline is 20 April 2015.
(via Comics Beat, image via UN Women)
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Published: Mar 25, 2015 02:18 pm