The Lions Worldwide Annual “Peace Poster Contest” was launched in the month of October 2014, inviting the youth all over the world to paint, sketch, or draw their personal, masterpiece, portrayal of World Peace.
The Sint Maarten Lions Club once again took part in this project and, in doing so, offered nine students from elementary to secondary school level art guidance and mentorship by well-known, local painter Mr. Max Phelipa. Mr. Phelipa spent every Saturday morning and Thursday afternoon with the young participants while they enthusiastically worked on their Peace Poster contest entry at the Lions’ Den on the Sucker Garden Road. Each artwork had to depict this year’s Peace Poster Contest theme of “PEACE LOVE & UNDERSTANDING”. At the end, five students remained and submitted their artwork for the contest. Judging of the five peace poster drawings took place last week and saw the drawing of Evita Alla’make of Milton Peters College emerge as the winning poster.
Her inspiration and explanation of her drawing is the following: “God’s hand is holding the world and I know that he wants peace for the world. The two people are complete opposites but still love each other: that represents understanding and love. The flags represent unity, that the whole world should have peace. And I love music and I believe that through music we can have love, peace and understanding.”
Evita’s poster was then sent to Guyana where the Lions District Mid-Year Conference was being held, and where the judging of all entries of district 60 took place on Friday November 21st 2014.
There again Evita’s drawing was selected as the winning poster and will now be sent to Lions Clubs International where it will join drawings from all over the world and judged for a third time.
At the Lions International Convention in June 2015 in Honolulu, Hawaii the international winner will be presented with the Lions International Peace Poster Prize.
St. Maarten Lions Club members are keeping their fingers crossed that Evita’s drawing will be chosen as the winning Lions’ Peace Poster of 2014.
In addition to the winning poster, the St. Maarten Lions Club selected the Most Creative drawing which was from Amy Marshall of the St. Dominic School. The Best Color Composition prize went to Darwin Ventura of the Charles Leopold Bell School. The Most Original artwork went to Lourde Laurore of the Oranje School. And in the category Free Expression the winning prize went to Curtis Mathurin of the Oranje School.
In his comments about the drawings Mr. Phelipa said that in mentoring the young artists he never imposed his style or anything of the kind to the kids but simply guided them and made sure that they adhered to the rules of the contest. He was very much amazed at the talent displayed by the young artists. He also felt very special to be working with kids and encouraged them to make good use of their talent and not to waste it but to continue painting.
All 5 participants received special gifts from the St. Maarten Lions Club to encourage them to continue using their special talent.