Children and youth champions for positive change: Winners of the Regional Creative Reading Competition for the Middle East and North Africa

24 September 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the education and social sectors' efforts to ensure broad access to learning. In response to this situation, UNODC's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative and the Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa (ROMENA) held a regional creative reading competition aimed at actively engaging education and social work professionals, students and youth in community-based activities, which focused on innovative ways to enable children to have learning experiences and to deliver educational messages. To participate in the competition, children and youth produced videos and creative content reflecting the “Do It Like The Zorbs” story in their own way while learning about the values of respect, tolerance, integrity, justice and fairness.

With September marking the International Day for Respect and one of the main values within the Zorbs’ story being respect, UNODC is happy to announce the winners of the competition who were chosen based on the simplicity, creativity, and passion of their submissions.

Winners of the children category:

1^st Place: The Syrian Society for Social Development – Syria
2^nd Place: The Syrian Society for Social Development – Syria
3^rd Place: Rehabilitation Center, Moubadra Center – Lebanon

Winners of the youth category:

1^st Place: The Syrian Society for Social Development – Syria
2^nd Place: Reem Abou Rabea – Palestine
3^rd Place: Batoul Ahmed Ghanem – Palestine

Such efforts helped children and youth become active champions for positive change and support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as SDG 4 “Quality Education”, SDG 5 “Gender Equality”, SDG 10 “Reduced Inequalities”, and SDG 16 “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”.

The winners' submissions can be viewed here.