WWF-Canada Offers Innovative Way for Kids to Raise their Voice for Earth Hour
“This contest is designed to connect climate change with those who will inherit it,” said WWF-Canada President and CEO, Gerald Butts.
Open to kids between the ages of 6 to 14 across the country, My Future, My Climate Postcard Contest invites young Canadians to create a postcard addressed to the Prime Minister. Each submission must include artwork depicting their solution to climate change, a message about their participation in Earth Hour and a personal appeal for action. Following the contest, WWF-Canada will hand-deliver these postcards to the House of Commons in Ottawa.
The contest’s eclectic and broad-based panel of judges draws on talent ranging from the creative to the political, including former Prime Minister John Turner, best-selling children’s author Glenn Murray, and award-winning Canadian broadcaster Gill Deacon. Jackson Lafferty (NWT Minister of Education, Culture and Employment), Gerry Craswell (Director, Science and Technology Unit; Curriculum and E-Learning Branch from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education), Monte Hummel (President Emeritus, WWF-Canada), Jane Drake (Canadian children’s author on environmental issues), Kathleen Wynne (Minister of Education for Ontario), Gerard Greenan (Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development and Attorney General, Prince Edward Island), and Gerald Butts round out the panel.
“Our Future, My Climate Postcard Contest is meant to be fun, but it also carries an important call to action,” said Butts. “We’re expecting millions of Canadians to take part in Earth Hour 2009. Participation levels like that show how profoundly people are concerned about climate change. This fully bilingual contest gives our kids a chance to express the need to make every hour Earth Hour.”
Postcard entries will be sorted into three age categories. WWF-Canada will choose ten semi-finalists from each division. Celebrity judges will select finalists who will then move on to the last round, during which Canadians will vote online to decide the grand prize winner in each age category.
“It’s our children who will reap the whirlwind of climate change,” said Butts, and it’s our job in every way we can to give them a voice and an opportunity in shaping its solution.”
The contest runs between March 23 and April 24. Full details are available at www.wwf.ca/mypostcard.
–30–
For more information please contact:
Sophia Chum, WWF-Canada, Education Manager
416.489.4567 ext. 7288
Scott Gardiner, WWF-Canada, Communications Specialist
416-484-7727