On the occasion of Europe Day (May 9), an award ceremony for the winners of the Instagram photo competition entitled “Climate change in your hands” took place at the EU Info Centre in Banja Luka on May 12. The competition was launched as part of the Week of European Climate Diplomacy, with the aim of promoting the climate change prevention.
Head of the EU Delegation to BiH and EU Special Representative in BiH, Ambassador Lars-Gunnar Wigemark presented the awards, pointing out that climate change is one of the most important issues that we all need to discuss.
‘’In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we rarely talk about climate change. Therefore, it is important that the topic of this competition for BiH young people was climate, climate change and how they see it. We can all do a lot to preserve our environment and reduce pollution, as well as to be behave more carefully. I am glad that young photographers from BiH have recognised this topic as essential and they have shown it through their works. Having in mind that all the winners chose semi-professional cameras as their awards, I’m sure we’ll see more of their photos in the future”, said Ambassador Wigemark.
More than 800 interesting Instagram posts were submitted by applicants across the country, capturing the way they perceived climate change and how it was demonstrated in their environment.
Authors of the three best photographs had the opportunity to choose their prize from the following items: laptop, smartphone, tablet, TV or digital camera. All of them selected the camera as their prize, which will help in developing their photographic skills.
The first-prize winner of the competition was Zerina Kurtović from Brčko, Ajla Delić from Velika Kladuša took the second place, while Kristijan Vujčić from Prijedor was the third.
In her winning photograph, Zerina Kurtović put focus on air pollution, expressing her desire to get the public more involved in tackling this issue.
“Through my photograph capturing air pollution, I tried, in a picturesque way, to convey the message to the public, in order to draw more attention to the preservation of environment in the future”, said Kurtović.
The EU Info Centre’s competition was open to all creative young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina whose task was to submit a photo depicting the causes or consequences of climate change and share it on their Instagram profiles along with the competition rules. Photographs of the competition finalists can be found here.
