Pak students' picture grabs UNDP award

ISLAMABAD A photograph of female and male students in Pakistan working together on a circuit board in their engineering class was one of the three winning photographs of a global anti-poverty photo contest, UNDP said on Wednesday. The second annual Picture This: We Can End Poverty photo contest was organised earlier this year by the UNDP in partnership with Olympus Corporation and The Agence France-Presse (AFP) Foundation. Nearly 1,400 contestants submitted more than 3,000 photos in both the professional and amateur categories, and three top prizes were awarded in each of these categories. Additionally, the public voted online for a Peoples Choice award. The first prize winners are Prakash Hatvalne, an Indian photojournalist, in the professional category; Tran Vinh Nghia, a videographer from Viet Nam, in the amateur category; and Agha Rizwan Ali from Pakistan in the Peoples Choice category. The other two winners, judged by UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and internationally-acclaimed actor Antonio Banderas and four photo journalists, feature a boy on his way to school in India and fishermen in Viet Nam bringing in the days catch. By showing what people around the world are doing to eradicate extreme poverty in their communities, we see that the Millennium Development Goals are not just abstract targets, but are about making a tangible difference in peoples lives, said Helen Clark, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator. It is our hope that through showcasing these real and positive actions, more people will be motivated to contribute to this effort, he said.

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