Champak concludes its creative child contest

Champak, the most widely read children’s magazine in India, organized the grand finale of its nation-wide children’s talent competition, ‘Champak Creative Child Contest’ on Saturday, April 26th, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Weightlifting Stadium, New Delhi. The grand finale, where in more than 1800 children participated in the day-long event, was the culmination of the pan-India ‘on the spot painting and writing competition’. Pepsodent was the presenting sponsor and Avon cycles was the associate sponsor of this mega event.

Champak Creative Child Contest, commonly known as CCC, is highly acclaimed as being the foremost platform for young kids in India to exhibit their writing and drawing abilities. In its 6th edition, CCC was organized at 400+ schools across 39 towns in India, with a whopping 1.50 lakhs+ kids participating in the Contest. The event was organized in 3 stages – School Round, Zonal Finals & Grand Finale. It took 10-months of hard work to reach such a wide geography and generate such a massive response.

The Grand Finale of the Champak Creative Child Contest was held at Jawaharlal Nehru Weightlifting Stadium, New Delhi amid huge fan-fare and excitement. More than 1800 kids along with their parents, teachers & friends took part in the Contest. Kids came from all parts of India like Mumbai, Kolkata, Jaipur, Agra, Indore etc., making the entire Grand Finale event a truly pan-India contest of creativity & imagination among kids.

The Grand Finale event started with the children participating in either writing or a drawing contest, as per their choices. The list of subjects was announced on the spot and they were given 1-hour to submit their entry. The contest was held in multiple batches. The judging of the entries was a three-tier process that involved the editorial teams of Champak and other Delhi Press magazines, including assistance from external judges. With the help of more than 30 judges, the entries were judged within a span of 3 hours. In the meantime, there were a series of story-telling and entertainment events that were organized to keep the students and parents engaged.

The Contest Format was divided into 2 Segments – (A) Main Contest, for the school-level winners & (B) Happy Times Contest, for all other kids, who came to the Grand Finale event directly as wild card entries. Each of the 2 segments was split in 2 groups – (i) Junior Group (Class III – V) & Senior Group (Class VI – VIII). To encourage both writing & drawing skills individually, each group had a separate winner list for creative writing & drawing entries. In totality, 48 winners were chosen across 8 categories.

The top 12 winners from the nation-wide Creative Child Contest, and the top 4 winners from the Happy Times contest (wild card entries), received a High-end Tablet worth Rs. 25,000 each. Besides the tablets, all the first prize winners in the Main Contest received cash awards of Rs. 5000, the second prize winners received Rs. 3000, third prize winners received Rs. 2000 and additionally there were 5 consolation prize winners for each of the categories with a cash prize of Rs.500. Similarly, even in the Happy Times Contest, the winners received cash prizes of Rs.3000, Rs.2000 and Rs.1000 each for the first second and third positions and Rs.500 each as Consolation prize. Besides this, all the winners received medals, certificates and gift hampers.

The Chief Guest of the Grand Finale event, Shallu Jindal, Chairperson of National Bal Bhavan & also the Co-Chairperson of Jindal Steel and Power Foundation, encouraged the children to come forward in making the society a better place in future. In her keynote address, Ms. Jindal said, “I congratulate Champak for such an initiative and wish all the kids the very best to explore their imagination skills.”

Paresh Nath, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the Delhi Press Group, reaffirmed the belief of Champak magazine being close to a child’s heart for so many generations and appealed to both children and their parents to embrace the good ways of living a life. In his address, Mr. Nath said, “Children should inculcate the habit of expressing themselves through drawing as well as words. This Contest enables children to come on a national platform and compete with other children and see their performance.”

Atul Sinha, Category Head – Oral Care, Hindustan Unilever Limited, complimented Champak for this pan-India initiative and said “Pepsodent’s mission is to inculcate good oral care habits with consumers and most importantly children and this Contest helped us to engage with kids to make them learn better oral care habits. We aim to continue learning better oral care habits through fun activities and increase our footprint year on year.”

In the Grand Finale, a major attraction was the presence of the popular TV character ‘Raavi’ from the TV channel Big Magic, who interacted with the audience. Her TV show, Raavi in Big Magic’s bouquet is highly popular among kids and the same  was very evident from the warm reception and applause, she received from the kids in the auditorium.

Other than the Contest activity, the Grand Finale had some other attractive fun elements like Pepsodent Activity Zone, Horlicks Kesar Badam Game Zone, Avon Cycle Activity Corner etc., which were enthusiastically attended by hundreds of kids during the event.

Pepsodent was the Presenting Sponsor of the 6th Edition of Champak Creative Child Contest and Avon Cycles was the Associate Sponsor. Also, this mega event was supported by Horlicks (Activity Partner) & Big Magic (TV Partner).