After two editions of BANDA ASAP held in 2023, through which students from Bucharest, Brașov, Constanța and Iaşi represented the hero of recycling through hundreds of works, the ASAP Romania program, in partnership with Animest, continues the comic contest in Sibiu and Neamț counties! Thus, middle school and high school students from these counties are invited starting dated March 4 to register with works on the topic of recycling – “2040. Plastic is still thrown in the trash in Romania. A hero/heroine decides to take the fate of plastic into his own hands”.
The contest involves drawing a story in a comic book template, which can be downloaded from the official ASAP Romania website, from the dedicated page. The story must be thought and drawn by the students and then entered in the competition by a teacher from the school where each student studies, until April 4, 2024. The winners of the contest will be announced on April 19, after the judging stage.
Bikes for winning students
Comics will be judged by a panel of comics experts: Anna scratch Benczédiillustrator and creator of comics from Cluj-Napoca, whose works crossed the borders of the country and were published in anthologies in Poland, Hungary and Serbia, Lygia Sun, co-founder and co-organizer of the Animest Festival, and Adrian Beardscriptwriter and author of comics, book illustrator, co-founder and coordinator of Comics Club Cluj.
The works will be judged by category (secondary schools / high schools), based on the following criteria: compliance with the competition theme, the creativity of the author and the visual appearance of the drawing.
The prizes of this BANDA ASAP edition are 8 bikes! 4 for each county, 2 for middle school students and 2 for high school students. The schools of the winning students will each receive an interactive whiteboard. For the tutors of the award-winning children and teenagers, the organizers of the contest offer a course of personal development, respectively vocational counseling.
“The power of example, by which whole communities become involved, and the power of the group, working towards a common goal, are fantastic. This has been strongly confirmed to me by the two editions of BANDA ASAP so far. I am waiting with great enthusiasm to see what ideas and stories the students from Sibiu and Neamț will express graphically, but also what drawing styles they will use to build their recycling heroes. I can imagine!”, said Ligia Soare, co-founder and co-organizer of Animest.
“BANDA ASAP is one of our important projects, with which we want to reach as many teenagers as possible, that's because it animates not only their creativity, artistic spirit or imagination, but also their curiosity about the subject of recycling, at the same time awakening in them the desire to find solutions for a cleaner environment, through these heroes that I bring to life. We are excited about how beautifully this competition is growing and we want it to be as loved by the young people of Neamț and Sibiu as it was by the participants of previous editions”. stated Mihaela Tutunaru, ASAP program coordinator.
The purpose of the BANDA ASAP contest is to increase the level of information and awareness about separate collection and recycling, the development of students' ecological spirit and their empowerment, through active involvement in a positive and constructive competition.
All details about the entry process, the conduct of the competition, judging criteria and prizes are available in the BANDA ASAP regulations – here.
The Green Week kit, updated
In addition, for even more ideas for classroom activities, ASAP Romania welcomes teachers throughout the country with the updated Green Week digital kit. It contains a recycling guide, activity sheets and an instruction sheet. Compared to the 2023 kit, it includes new games such as: “ASAP on Colors”, “Circular Economy Chart” or “ASAP Snakes and Ladders”.
The kit, which also includes its version released in 2023, is available for download on the ASAP website, so anyone can access it.
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Media partners: Embassy of Sustainability in Romania, Hotnews, Rock FM
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About ASAP Romania
ASAP (Army of Smart Plastic Selection) is a social responsibility program initiated by The Institute Foundation, which aims to generate change in the behavior of teenagers towards plastic, from use to separate collection and recycling. ASAP's objective is to actively contribute to the promotion of environmental education among the target audience and to create the largest unitary infrastructure for the separate collection of waste for recycling in all schools in Romania. Currently, the program is active in over 1,600 schools in 36 towns and municipalities in Romania, with information about separate collection and recycling reaching over half a million students from pre-university cycles.
ASAP is a program supported by Lidl Romania, which contributes to the objectives of the REset Plastic strategy of the Schwarz Group, of which the retailer is a part. The REset Plastic strategy includes five areas of action – from avoiding the use of plastic in packaging and rethinking their design, to recycling and greening actions, to innovation and education in the field.
All information about the ASAP program is available on the official ASAP Romania website and social media accounts, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
