In their drawings, the children reveal their joie de vivre or their sadness, their wishes and their fears. However, sometimes to make fun of someone, we say that he or she draws like a child, ‘my 4 year old kid is as gifted as you!’ If we look a little closer, though, to the drawings of our little ones we will see that they are awesome!
The youngest draw without constraints, without filters and without adult censorship. They can experiment and they enjoy the activity above all, without focusing on the result. We can therefore say that children's drawings, often full of freshness and spontaneity, have a lot to teach us about the depth of existence.
When the International Judo Federation launched its Great 8 drawing contest, reserved for people under 14 years old, on the theme of the eight fundamental values of the moral code of judo, we were expecting to discover some golden nuggets and the least we could say is that we were not disappointed because among the 1,800 illustrations from over 70 countries that were posted, the community of our little judoka spoke right gave to our hearts.
However talking about friendship, respect or even self-control for a child is not necessarily easy. The values of the moral code are often very abstract concepts that even adults can find difficult to define clearly and even more difficult to apply.
The drawing competition nevertheless revealed a very interesting aspect because beyond allowing our children to express themselves, it made it possible for them to create, recreate or strengthen the bonds between parents, grandparents, the world of adults and that of childhood. We noted with happiness that often the drawings which were sent to us were accompanied by some words from the parents, explaining how delighted they were to have spent time with their offspring and that to explain honour or politeness had the merit of putting words on important values for society.
Beyond the playful dimension of the drawings, the children and parents therefore met around a blank sheet of paper and some pencils, to express what they had in their hearts and souls. The older ones had to find the right words, while the children had to translate their feelings.
In a world that is losing its bearings, in a society where certain values seem to be disappearing, turning to creation has the power to connect generations. Thanks to the drawing contest, thanks to the shared values that it highlighted, the links were strengthened and we were able to open the world of judo to people who were not connected to it as they would have liked to be.
Thank you all for your investment in building a society that is more respectful of everyone and to all those who made that beautiful project a reality.
All illustrations in this article were submitted during the Great8 drawing contest. The results of the contest will be presented on June 1st.