THE Embassy of Mexico in Georgetown, in partnership with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), yesterday hosted 32 children, aged seven to eleven, from the Marian Academy, St. Agnes Primary, Smith’s Memorial Primary, and Joshua House.

They participated in a drawing class on Mexico’s culture and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The event was hosted at the Mexican Embassy at Stabroek, Georgetown. Speaking at the event was Mexican Ambassador Francisco Olguín, who noted that the occasion was in celebration of the rights of children which had developed only recently.

The Ambassador outlined briefly the history of the United Nations and the role of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in promoting peace by understanding other cultures around the world. He said, “Mexico has also been doing its own part, [since] we have been trying to promote the knowledge of our culture.”
Deputy Head of Mission at the Mexican Embassy, Ms. María-Elena Alcarez, in an invited comment from the Guyana Chronicle, stated that, “the idea is not so much to know of Mexican culture, but to awaken their [the students’] creativity and their will to learn about cultures other than their own.”
Pupils who have participated in the drawing class will be invited to participate in the 18th Children’s Drawing Contest “Éstees my México.” Teachers will submit the artistic work of the students to the Embassy, and these will be sent to Mexico for submission in the contest. The submissions will be judged in October, 2014, by a panel of Mexican artists, and painters.
According to her, the event is held annually in Mexico with children aged seven to ten. Ten years ago, the event was opened to the children of the world and facilitated by Mexican missions in the United States of America and Canada, since those are the two countries which hold the majority of Mexicans living in the Diaspora.
This is the third year the event is being facilitated by the Mexican Embassy in Guyana, and the event has seen increased participation of students. The first observance of the event in Guyana was held in 2012 but there was only one entrant in the contest.

“Each year, the contest is held under a different theme and since this is the 25th Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we are trying to have the children understand what their rights are and express it through art with a Mexican twist,” according to Alcaraz.

The Embassy will host a ceremony for the entrants from Guyana where certificates of participation will be given to each entrant and their pieces will be framed and showcased on the walls of the Embassy.