The Somali Green Crescent Society (SGCS) organized two days of training and completion on art and drawing to raise awareness for young people about addiction and substance abuse, including prescription drugs, khat, cigarettes, and hookah (Shisha), taboo, marijuana/cannabis, etc.
SGCS is committed to working on social issues, developing youth thinking, and raising societal awareness of addiction problems.
The art training and competition took place in Istanbul Hotel in Mogadishu on Aug 27, 2020, the 1st day was attended by 10 young artists who were interested in the arts and hand art skills. The training was facilitated by two senior artists with more than 30 years of experience in painting and making arts.
The next day on Aug 28, 2020, GCS held the art competition exhibition, and 22 persons attended including 10 young artists, 5 members of the competition evaluation & awarding committee, 2 facilitators/trainers, and 5 observers. Each young artist chose a theme and a thought-provoking addiction-related picture to raise community awareness of society.
Delivering a speech at the opening of the session, Dr. Farah Sharawe, a member of the SGCS executive board urged the young artists to continue their artistic careers and use their art skills to raise awareness of the community on social issues including the problems of ever-increasing addiction among youth. He said youth are the future of tomorrow, and we need to create opportunities for them by bringing creative ideas to enhance youth welfare and prevent drug addiction among them to change their lives.
At the end of the contest, the evaluation committee starts evaluating the paintings/cartoons posted by 8 contestants, and the SGCS executive presented prizes to the contestants in the art competition rewarding. a young artist, Abdulqadir M. Ligle, won the first position and received the first prize. Abdinasir A. Mohamed and Abdirahman A. Siyad secured the second and third positions and received the second and third awards, respectively. The rest of the contestants were also awarded monetary incentives for their important contributions to the art competition.