Calling All Budding Photographers!
Your chance to have your photo selected to be the
Sightsavers Diwali Card for 2011!
UK based charity Sightsavers, today launched a special competition as part of its new Diwali fundraising campaign.
The competition encourages anyone over the age of 16, from any walk of life, to submit a photo that they feel captures the essence of Diwali through family, fun, colour or light.?
Entry is simple! All entrants ?need to do is upload the best photos from their Diwali festivities or images that represent the festival of lights to the photo competition section of the Sightsavers Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/r3lk4M), along with a short caption that explains each photo and what it means to them. The closing date for entries is 31st August and participants can submit as many entries as they like!
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Soap star and newly appointed celebrity ambassador for Sightsavers, Himesh Patel, is also a budding photographer and is planning to submit one of his own images as part of the competition. He says: ?I think the competition is a really innovative way of getting people to think about how lucky we are to have our sight. Diwali is so bright and colourful ? from the diyas to the rangoli and fireworks. Imagine not being able to see the light that is at the heart of the festival of lights.?
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Entries are initially voted for by the public, and the top 10 photographs with the highest votes being shortlisted and presented to our judging panel. The winning entry will be printed as the Sightsavers Diwali card for this year, and the winner will also receive a Samsung digital camera and a pair of Polaroid sunglasses.
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Anisha Vasani, Editor of Asiana and a judge for the competition said: ?This is a lovely reward for any budding photographer. To think that their picture could be printed on thousands of cards that will be sent to friends and families all over the world to celebrate such a special festival for the community is pretty awesome! As judges we?ll be looking for creativity and images that emote the vibrancy and excitement associated with Diwali.?
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Entries for the Sightsavers Diwali Photo Competition can be uploaded by logging on to http://on.fb.me/r3lk4M. All entries must be uploaded by 31st August 2011.
For further press information, please contact:
Anjna Raheja at Media Moguls on 020 8902 5575 anjna@mediamoguls.com.?
For media enquiries out of hours, please call 07976 44 30 40
Notes to editors/
1.???? Sightsavers is a registered UK charity (Registered charity numbers 207544 and SC038110) that works in more than 30 developing countries to prevent blindness, restore sight and advocate for social inclusion and equal rights for people who are blind and visually impaired.? www.sightsavers.org
2.???? There are 39 million blind people in the world; 80% of all blindness can be prevented or cured.
3.???? ?Every sixty seconds another child loses their sight; only 2% of children who are disabled in the developing world attend school
4.???? In the six decades since its foundation, Sightsavers has:
–?????? Treated over 206.8 million people for blinding and potentially blinding conditions
–?????? Carried out over 7.1 million operations to restore sight
–?????? Trained almost 0.5 million primary eye care workers
–?????? Carried out rehabilitation training to 91,000 people
5. Sightsavers has been working in India for 45 years and has to date funded over 4 million sight-restoring cataract surgeries. By 2012 Sightsavers wants to:
– treat 5.4 million people for various eye conditions;
– fund? 320,000 sight-restoring cataract operations;
– provide 718,000 people with spectacles;
– train 850 local ophthalmic staff, such as eye surgeons and optometrists, and? 39,000 primary eye care workers, such as community health workers and teachers;
– strengthen infrastructure and provide equipment for 50 eye care facilities.
This work will cost ?5 million. The Vision India Appeal aims to raise ?1 million towards this ambitious goal. www.sightsavers.org/visionindia