The organisation board and the jury of Dế Mèn (Cricket) Awards attended its launching ceremony on Wednesday. The winners will be announced at the end of this September. — Photo courtesy of the organisation board

HÀ NỘI — Awards honouring works dedicated to children were launched by Thể Thao & Văn Hóa (Sports & Culture) newspaper on Wednesday.

Entitled Dế Mèn (Cricket), named after the main character in the famous Vietnamese children's story Dế Mèn Phiêu Lưu Ký (Diary of a Cricket) by Tô Hoài, the annual non-profit awards will be presented to excellent composes, art performances and entertainment programmes created by children themselves or for children.

The awards will include one grand prize named 'Cricket Knight' and several other awards called 'Cricket Desire'.

“As a long-standing newspaper specialised in sports, culture and entertainment, Thể Thao & Văn Hóa has realised that the search for compositions and art performances with rich values of truth, kindness and beauty to nurture the children’s souls has been a great concern of the whole society in the age of booming entertainment technology,” said Lê Xuân Thành, editor-in-chief of Thể Thao & Văn Hóa.

“In Việt Nam today, most awards are aimed at adults, while there is a shortage of national awards with high professionalism to promote works and art performances by children of for children,” he added.

Following the successes of the awards organised by the newspaper in the past like Cống Hiến (Dedication) Music Awards, Bùi Xuân Phái – For the Love of Hà Nội Awards and Rồng Tre (Bamboo Dragon) Cup, the newspaper decided to launch the Dế Mèn (Cricket) Awards to encourage compositions, art performances and entertainment programmes by children or for children.

Within the framework of the awards ceremony that will take place annually on Children’s Day – June 1, seminars, exhibitions and performing arts on the subject of children’s art will also be held.

The jury will include seven prestigious artists, writers and journalists associated with children’s art in various fields like veteran poet Nguyễn Quang Thiều, child poet Trần Đăng Khoa or painter Thành Chương.

The awards will be presented for works that meet either of these two criteria: compositions, art performances and entertainment programmes by children or composers, art performances and entertainment programmes for children. International authors with works created for Vietnamese children are also eligible.

Eligible works must be announced or discovered from May 15 of the earlier year to May 15 of the present year.

The entries can be in one of several forms like literature, cinema, music, arts, theatre, photography, comic, traditional games or electronic games.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the awards ceremony this year is expected to take place at the end of September to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. The next ceremonies will be held on Children’s Day on June 1.

“I have travelled to many countries in the world and been to areas dedicated to children’s books, particularly in international book fairs. Recently, I visited the International Book Fair in Cuba and I learned that there are few children’s books in Việt Nam,” said poet Nguyễn Quang Thiều.

“We could translate international children’s book into Vietnamese. But if a child reads too many translated works, the beauty of their soul is still being cultivated but such beauty is too exotic to the beauty of the land they were born in and grew up in. It is the land, the culture, the people, the nature and other dreams of Việt Nam.

“The launch of the Cricket Awards originated from the desire to bring the deepest, purest and most charming spiritual life to children,” he added.

Another jury member of the award, poet and composer Nguyễn Thụy Kha, agreed, saying: “I feel very happy that such a dry field has been watered with 'a rain' called Dế Mèn Awards. We, adults, have paid a lot of attention to other awards and forget the awards for our future generations.”

To raise funds for the awards, also at the launching ceremony, Thể Thao & Văn Hóa called on the artists to donate their works for an auction to be held at the awards ceremony in September. Parts of the fund will also be used to donate to other activities; maintain the awards; support art by the children or for the children; organise charity activities like presenting scholarships and build schools for children in disadvantaged areas. — VNS