Iran launches the 2006 State of the World's
Children's Report - "Excluded and Invisible"
"Where are the playgrounds?" The caption
under the winning photo of UNICEF's "Excluded and Invisible"
photography competition, held to coincide with the launch of this
year's State of the World's Children Report, speaks volumes.
The winner, 15-year-old Kham Nazmi, took the
picture in Ziveh, an Iraqi/Kurdish refugee camp near Orumiyeh,
in northwest Iran. The photo depicts a group of refugee children,
dressed in scruffy clothes and playing with a wheelbarrow. They
are looking expectantly up at the camera, as if hoping the person
taking the photo can help them.
"Where are the playgrounds?" - Kham
Nazmi (First Prize) - 2005
Nazmi's photo is one of 125 entered in the competition,
which was organized in collaboration with UNHCR and Iran's Institute
for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults
(Kanoon).
"UNICEF strongly believes that getting children
to speak up on issues affecting them is very important,"
said UNICEF Officer in Charge, Jan Pieter Kleijburg. "So
often children's voices, and therefore their needs, are forgotten
about or ignored. We saw this exercise as one way of making sure
their voices are heard."
The entrants - aged between 10 and 18 - came
from all over Iran including the provinces of Kerman, Sistan Baluchistan,
Hormozgan and West Azerbaijan and two Afghan and two Iraqi refugee
camps. The children were first asked to think about what it means
to be excluded and invisible and then given three weeks to take
photos interpreting the theme, using digital cameras supplied
by UNICEF and UNHCR.
"Cultural activities among nations, or what
is known as dialogue among civilizations, have always been very
effective; much more effective than diplomatic means," said
Seyed Mozafar Shojaee, head of International Affairs at Kanoon.
"When it comes to children, this cultural transmission becomes
even deeper and more effective, since children are so pure and
honest."
The four judges in the competition included representatives
from Kanoon, UNICEF and UNHCR, as well as a professional photographer.
Sixteen winners were chosen, the top three of which won a camera
each.
This year's State of the World's Children Report
focuses on children who are hardest to reach - children facing
discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity and disability,
children affected by HIV/AIDS, children who lack a formal identity
and those who suffer child protection abuses or who are not treated
as children.
It underlines how these children face multiple
violations of their rights and outlines the challenges faced by
governments, international organizations, communities and societies
in assisting them.
It also argues for targeted initiatives to assist
children living in marginalized communities, endorsing many of
the measures proposed in the Millennium Project.
The top three winners of the competition are as follows:
Kham Nazmi (First Prize)
"Where are the playgrounds?"
Mohammad Reza Sadeghi (Second Prize)
“Hurray. Playing with friends in the camps”
Ameneh Mohammadi (Third Prize)
“Studying, we'll build Afghanistan."
The following 13 children also received prizes:
Mohadeseh Tavakolinejad
Sara Mansouri
Fatemeh Raisi
Asadollah Bakhtiyari
Mohammad Hassan Seyedi
Seddigheh Rabbani
Hawra Arkawazi
Nawal Fartousi
Ali Hossein Mohammadi
Mohammad Kazem Majidi
Shirin Yousefi
Saleh Haji
Herash Ghader
Contact information:
Miranda Eeles
Communication Officer, UNICEF Iran
Tel: (98-21) 2259-4994, ext. 419
Mobile: (98) 912 3462034
