About 350 students from 40 schools attended Cancer Memorial Day - Painting Contest by Vasantha Memorial Trust to drive home the fact that Cancer is certainly curable with early detection.
The competition was conducted in Chennai with the theme 'Papa! Make my tomorrow cancer free'. "There was an overwhelming response with about 40 schools and 350 students from the city enthusiastically taking part. This is a laudable conscious attempt to make the children and their parents understand that nearly 70% cancers can be prevented with proper care and right steps right from childhood. Parents have a tremendous role in preventing cancers in their wards," Dr Ramanathan, Founder Trustee of Vasantha Memorial Cancer Centre, said.
Children were divided in 3 categories, class I-IV, Class V-VII, Class VIII upwards. They were extremely enthusiastic to showcase their talent in a platform like this. Some of the topics they painted were Papa don't smoke, Papa lets buy fruits and not aerated drinks, Papa we will walk/ cycle to school and not use vehicle, Papa join me in sport, Papa we will eat traditional food and not pizzas or burgers, etc.
Judges Keshav, Cartoonist, S. Jayaraj, noted artist and Usha Elangovan, art teacher mentioned it was a challenging task to choose the winners from among the best art as almost every painting was creative and artistic.
