Commercial Bank’s ‘Arunalu’ Art Competition awards Rs 555,000 to young artists
Forty five child artists between the ages of 6 and 14 years took home cash prizes totaling Rs 555,000 courtesy of Commercial Bank’s ‘Arunalu Siththam’ Art Competition.
The award ceremony of the first island-wide art competition hosted by the Bank under its flagship Children’s Savings Account Arunalu, was held on 4th July at the Sports Ministry Auditorium.
Mr. Jegan Durairatnam, the Managing Director of the Bank, graced the event as Chief Guest.
The Arunalu Siththam Art Competition was open to entries of school-going children from 15th January 2017 to 31st March 2017. The competition invited drawings from three age categories: Grades 1 to 3, Grades 4-6 and Grades 7-9.
Creating an exclusive space for young artistic expressions, the competition allowed participants to choose their own topics and colour medium. Subsequently, a whopping 12,500 works of art were entered into the competition.
The first placed winners of each category were awarded Rs 50,000, while the second and third placed winners received cash prizes of Rs 35,000 and Rs 25,000 each respectively. Cash prizes of Rs 15,000 and Rs 10,000 each was presented to the fourth and fifth placed winners of every category.
In addition to this, the Bank also conferred merit prizes of Rs 5000 to ten highly commended child artists in each age category. Each winner was presented a certificate and an Arunalu Children’s Savings Account with his or her cash prize.
The panel of judges for the competition included S.H.Sarath, a veteran Sri Lankan artist of international acclaim, who has the experience of hosting over 100 art exhibitions; Professor Ramyawardene Podinilame, the Dean of the University of Visual and Performing Arts; B.G.Jayanth Mendis, a retired senior lecturer from the University of Visual and Performing Arts; and yet another veteran artist, Rienzie Fernando, the head of the creative department of ‘Creative First.’
The Bank said it is proud to have created an avenue for young creative expression and strives to encourage budding talent in the country.
The only Sri Lankan bank to be ranked among the top 1000 banks of the world for six consecutive years, Commercial Bank has won multiple awards as Sri Lanka’s Best Bank, Best Trade Bank, Strongest Bank, and Most Respected Bank from a number of local and international institutions and publications over theyears. It has also been adjudged as one of Sri Lanka’s 10 best corporate citizens by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce for several years.
Commercial Bank’s overseas operations encompass Bangladesh, where the bank operates 18 outlets, Myanmar, where it has a Representative Office in Yangon, the Maldives, where the bank opened a fully-fledged Tier 1 Bank in September 2016, and Italy, where the Bank launched its own money transfer service in November 2016.
