The final of the third Declamatory competition for the International Mother Language Day took place on February 20 at the Bialystok Puppet Theater. The event which was organized by the Tutaka Foundation and the Center for Belarusian Culture, was attended and personally welcomed by Podlaskie voivode Jacek Brzozowski.
The current competition had five nominations. In the first age group from 5 to 8 years old, Stefan Lisichonak became the winner, in the second – from 9 to 12 – Kliment Latyshonak, in the third – from 13 to 17 – Zofia Galubouskaya, in the fourth – 18+ – Aksana Marko. Valery Ruselik won the new nomination, which appeared for the first time this year – ”Art Video”.
By the way, the winner in the first nomination Stefan Lisichonak was most liked by the audience, who gave him their sympathies for the poem by Andrei Khadanovich ”Regime”.
It is worth noting that while the jury was summing up the results, the audience could watch the filmstrips that the participants of the “Filmstrip-live” project brought to Bialystok. Illustrated works by Nadezhda Yasminskaya, Volha Gapeeva, Andrei Khadanovich and Andrei Skurko were shown in the theater hall.
Thus, there were enough activities at the final event of the competition. It must have been quite difficult to organize it? I asked Dzmitry Kostin, Chairman of the Program Board of the Tutaka Foundation.
“Very often it seems that the recitation competition is just one read, came, went. And we set ourselves the task to also interest these young people, children who were more actively involved, in some way, so that they would not just come, report and go, later learn about the results, but still stay, spend the day together. Therefore, there are filmstrips and we are very glad that we were able to join the Mother Language Day.
It must have been difficult to prepare, it must have been hard work for the jury members, since some categories, especially the two youngest ones, were the most numerous. And it’s very difficult to figure out how the jury works, choosing who to skip to the finals, who not to miss. For me, all the winners who took part in this competition. And it seems to me that this is also a great reason to make the Belarusian word sound for the Mother Language Day”.