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ICEFA 2009 prize awards - Latvia, Riga
18. 12. 2009
On 3 December 2009 the embassy at Riga organized the 37th ICEFA Lidice 2009 prize award ceremony in the cinema Riga in which 62 Latvian children and two schools received certificates and medals from Ambassador Tomáš Pštross. The awards took place in the presence of representatives of Latvian partner institutions. The ceremony concluded with the film comedy for children Long Live Ghosts! by Oldřich Lipský.
As we state every year, the Lidice exhibition keeps its popularity in Latvia, as is testified by this year’s Latvian sub-competition with 1600 entries from near a hundred Latvian schools from all the country. The expert panel of judges selected 200 of them to be sent in to the main competition. But first they were exhibited in the foyer of the Riga Municipality. The Great Assembly Hall of the Latvian University saw the creators of the selected entries awarded honourable mentions from the Riga Council and the State Education Centre (former state agency “Youth Activities Centre”). For the second time, the embassy at Riga awarded the Sympathy Prize to eight creators of the selected works (three of them later received Lidice certificates). Receiving 65 prizes (pupils of 21 regional schools and 11 schools and hobby centres of Riga) , this year Latvia came to be on the first rung of the imaginary ladder of success – measured by the number of received prizes – from among 53 countries of the world.
The opening speech to the children, their parents and artistic leaders was given by Ambassador Tomáš Pštross. Then the audience was addressed by the representatives of the partner organizations, namely the deputy director of the State Education Centre as the chief guarantor of the Latvian sub-competition, and the secretary general of the Latvian Commission for UNESCO. Afterwards, the ambassador handed over to the children their prizes and gifts from the embassy – games (Black Peter, Pexeso, Quartets, Dominoes) featuring Czech fairytales and goodnight tales (Pat and Mat, Ferda the Ant, Mole, goodnight tales’ characters etc.). The two winning schools received a puzzle of Prague and a popular Czech game, Kloboučku, hop! (Jump, little hat!). All guests had the opportunity to view the books sent in by the organizer, Lidice – the Story of a Czech Village by E. Stehlík, and the ICEFA Lidice Catalogue 1967-2009. The books gained much interest. The ceremony concluded with the film “Long Live Ghosts!” by Oldřich Lipský, which was well received by the children and the adults. Ensuring publicity (Latvian State Radio, media and the Riga public transport newsletter named 5minutes), the management of the cinema Riga co-operated excellently in the promotion of the event.
The embassy at Riga prepares the presentation of the exhibition “Responses to the Lidice Tragedy“ in the entrance hall of the Riga Council, together with the exhibition of the selected entries to the Latvian sub-competition. The exhibitions will take place at the time of the visit of a Czech Parliament delegation in February 2010.
Mgr. Bc. Michal Korecký
