The world is currently experiencing a global pandemic and it has transformed life as we know it. Schools are closed and families are mostly confined to their homes and parents have been seeking out educational opportunities and activities for their children. Nestlé Pakistan announced the winners of the Nestlé for Healthier Kids (N4HK) drawing contest on the occasion of World Health Day. The Nestlé for Healthier Kids (N4HK) drawing contest was an initiative taken by Nestlé Pakistan so that children could engage their creative capacities during the pandemic. It was a nationwide contest geared towards children from age group10-14 years.
There were three themes of the competition; ‘I’m active, I exercise’; ‘I eat healthy’; and ‘I love water’. These themes were designed to inspire students to understand and educate themselves on healthy habits and give them an opportunity to become more aware of active lifestyle through drawing pictures under any one of the three themes.
Nestlé’s event was a great success as children not only had a productive use of their time, but they also got an exceptional platform to express their emotions, demonstrate their creativity. The N4HK drawing contest helped parents in keeping children engaged while provoking thoughtful family conversations. The aim of this activity was to foster positivity amongst our children by giving them chance to express their imagination and represent their ideas on paper since drawing is an outlet for communication.
The second major benefit this competition served to the students was that this fun learning activity nurtured a healthy competition amongst the children and during this entire activity they learnt the importance of hydration, active lifestyle and role of healthy eating and good nutrition and how it contributes towards a healthier immune system hence, fortifies ones’ protections against any virus. This self-awareness helped children in becoming more conscious and careful about their health to make better nutrition decisions from an early age for a healthier future. Hence, participants, while doing research on these themes for inspiration, got the chance to look into and read up on importance of healthy habits for healthy lifestyle. In doing so, they will become more conscious and careful about their health during these unprecedented times.
The children participating submitted their artwork entries to the N4HK panel of Judges via email. In total, the participation for this campaign was large, as more than 1000 entries rolled in from across Pakistan.
Alongside this, through the vast level of this event, participants expressed their imagination and analyzed such important topics. This activity instilled in the young participants a sense of healthy competition at a grand scale, and hence harnessed their own sense of excellence and achievement. All these qualities are highly critical to academic success, and the competition was successful in providing the perfect window for it.
Two winners were selected from each age group. The contestants shared stellar masterpieces of original and creative artworks. The winners were selected based on how well their artworks demonstrated a deep and thorough understanding of the theme, originality, creativity, artistic value and prowess.
“We would congratulate the winners, who will be awarded certificates and their entries will be proudly published on Nestlé’s website. First 100 entries will receive certificate of participation from Nestlé for Healthier Kids Team,” Nestlé said in a statement.
Nestlé for Healthier Kids program (N4HK) launched in 2010, keeping in view the malnutrition challenges among children in Pakistan, is a comprehensive nutrition awareness program which educates parents, teachers and caregivers to induce healthy lifestyle among school going children. N4HK is a curriculum-based program, comprising of a book designed by Oxford University Press (in both English and Urdu), which provides the basic knowledge on nutrition, encourage physical activity and the intake of balanced diet. So far, the program has reached out to about 250,000 children and 1300 teachers and aims to reach out to more than 300,000 children by 2022.
Education is a powerful tool for ensuring that children understand the value of nutrition and physical activity and continue leading healthy lives as they grow older. Nestlé for Healthier Kids makes a collective effort with its partners to help address and overcome the nutrition challenge to give the children a happier and healthier future.
