Meet the three winners of the UN Day 2022 essay/photo essay contest!

Congratulations to:

1. Rani Salsabila Effendi from Aceh Besar
2. Irene Bougenville Martin from Pontianak
3. And Hofi Hannan Ar Rosyid from Jember

We are thankful for the many submissions we have received, and we will be in touch with many of you over the next few weeks to extract a soundbite or a paragraph from your essays for our social media channels. The three winning submissions were selected based on the originality of the ideas, the power of the explanation and the personal experience shared. These submissions also managed to distinctively explain how the United Nations has impacted the authors in a compelling manner.

Meet the winners:

Rani, in her submission entitled, “A Belated Thank You to the UN” shared her personal story of how the devastating Indian Ocean Tsunami has turned her life upside down when she was only four years old. She witnessed firsthand how resilient the Acehnese people were and how the world, including the United Nations has extended its arm, jointly responding to the disasters as one.

Irene, a Bachelor of Pharmacy graduate and a former victim of gender-based violence has shared her story on how, through the support of UN-led programmes, she overcame her trauma and has joined an NGO offering support to people who have gone through similar experience. She is determined to also bring other social issues in her community such as stigmatization towards racial minorities into the public spotlight and help spread the awareness.

Hofi, in his photo essay talks about the significance of “gotong royong” (community work) in curbing the climate crisis. The photos collated depict the harsh truth of our daily lives and how comfortable we are in polluting the environment and co-exist with plastic pollution. Inspired by the work of the UN on fighting pollution and climate change, Hofi worked to amplify the urgency of the problem and convince others to collectively stand up and fight the race against climate crisis. He documented the work of the World Clean Up Day International 2022 – cleaning up the Bedadung River. With this photo essay, Hofi is calling his peers and the general public to do their part in fighting pollution and the climate crisis.

Congratulations to the winners. Our team will be in touch shortly and arrange for your visit to UN Headquarters in Jakarta!

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