Hilton Hotels Sri Lanka along with Big Spark by Gateway and SOS Children’s Villages plan to raise awareness amongst chil- dren on ‘Save The Ocean’ by hosting one of the biggest virtual competitions.
Hilton Sri Lanka is always committed to driving responsible travel and tourism by incorporating sustainable practices to decrease the environmental footprint. The campaign runs for three months starting from August.
“The objective of the campaign is to increase global awareness on the damage being done to the oceans and sea creatures by engaging children to think creatively on how to make the world we live in a better place. This will create global awareness for Sri Lanka as a unique and sustainable tourist destination”, com- mented Christopher Zappia, Cluster Commercial Director, Hilton Hotels Sri Lanka. The campaign is a virtual event, where children from across the globe, between the ages of three and 16, will be encouraged to send in short video submissions with their creative ideas on how they can help. They can enter under one of the five categories poster competition/essay, creative writing and poetry/ build a creative aquarium at home/design robots for ocean exploration and conservation/ design a game using any coding platform with the theme being
‘Save the Ocean’. Big Spark by Gateway the technology partner for this event, manages the page created exclusively for this competition on Flipgrid. All competitors can submit their entries by visiting the link flipgrid.com/savethe – ocean2020. Entries for the competition close on November 15, 2020.
“At the end of the three months campaign, for every ten submissions, we will collect one kilogram of plastic waste through a beach cleanup and release one baby turtle to the ocean. So the more submissions we receive, the more we collect and release,” Zappia explains. Furthermore, attractive prizes will be awarded by a panel of judges for the most creative and relevant submission. The campaign will target schools across Sri Lanka and will reach up to 50,000 children from the SOS Children’s Villages in 12 countries in Asia Pacific, namely Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Laos, Philippines, Nepal, Vietnam, China, South Korea, Indonesia, and Japan. The beach cleanup and the releasing of turtles from the turtle hatcheries in Sri Lanka will take place after the prize winners are chosen with all stakeholders participating including Hilton Colombo, Hilton Colombo Residences, Double Tree by Hilton Weerawilla Rajawarna Resort, and Hilton Yala.
