The winners of the recently launched cartoon contest aimed at raising awareness about the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, have been awarded Tk1 lakh in total.
The contest, “Fight Against Corona,” was organized by Cartoon People, a community of cartoonists, with the support of Access to Information (a2i).
787 awareness cartoons were submitted by more than 300 local and international participants, said a press release issued by them on Sunday.
Only 154 were selected for the final round and now anyone can use these cartoons to raise awareness free of charge, by visiting here.
People can also download the selected submissions in high resolution for free use from here.
Mahatab Rashid won the first prize and was awarded Tk50,000. Rakeeb Razzak and Sayed Fida Hossain got Tk30,000, and Tk20,000 respectively, for securing second and third place in the competition.
Ahsan Habib, senior cartoonist and editor of Unmad magazine, poet and journalist Anik Khan, and writer and animated film production manager Wahid Ibn Reza, were the judges for the competition.
Talking about the initiative, Syed Rashad Imam Tanmoy, founder of Cartoon People said: “Cartoon People is a big community of cartoonists. From the very beginning of the coronavirus crisis we have been thinking about how we, cartoonists, can be useful and work in this situation.
“Thus, the arrangement of this competition and online exhibition. Cartooning is a great medium to grab the attention of the people. The aim was to present awareness messages through simple visuals for fellow citizens. All the cartoonists were very excited about contributing from the very beginning.”
“We have focused on topics like personal hygiene, social distancing, and myth-busting. Once a2i came on board and announced the prize money the number of participants skyrocketed,” he added.
As of Sunday, Bangladesh has confirmed 14,657 coronavirus cases with the death toll rising to 228 after 14 new fatalities were reported.
Till now the fast-spreading coronavirus has claimed more than 259,000 lives and infected more than 4,120,000 people globally, according to Worldometer.
As many as 1,450,000 people have recovered from Covid-19, which has spread to 210 countries and territories across the world.
