Ah Liki Wholesale has launched a primary school-focused art competition in partnership with international dairy company Anchor Fonterra.

The “ANCHOR Creative Art Competition” was launched in Upolu yesterday and will involve a total of 170 primary schools nationwide. 

Ah Liki Wholesale head of sales, Losa Maiai-Wallwork, said part of the competition includes the distribution of free milk to Year 1-2 students at all primary schools on both Upolu and Savai’i.

“The objective of our campaign is to raise the level of understanding among students on the nutritional value of milk, and the health benefits that can be realised from regular consumption,” she said.

Segi Vasa, who works with the Ah Liki Wholesale marketing team, said the company ran a similar competition two years ago and they received positive feedback on it.

“We initially had this competition in 2017 and we had great feedback from students, teachers and also parents about how useful this competition is to get the creativity of the students working as well as to be innovative with their ideas,” he said.

As part of the competition, students are expected to be creative in how they use the Anchor milk cartons and products as an important part of their daily lives. The competition is divided into three categories:  Year 3-4, Year 5-6 and Year 7-8. The art pieces are limited to 10 per category.

The ANCHOR Creative Art Competition will be judged by the BEN Academy of Fine Arts & Sculpture Park founder and director, Penehuro Papali’i as well as TV1 commentator Taulealea Sioeli Alofaifo.

A principal of one of the participating schools, Ruta Toafa, told this newspaper that it was important for a child’s creativity to be nurtured from a young age. 

“We also competed for the last competition and we were amazed at the schools’ creativity with the pieces that were submitted and displayed.

“Even though, we didn’t get the first place for the last one. But we’re more concerned with developing the creative minds of our students, and so this year we are determined to be even more creative with our pieces,” she said. 

Mrs. Toafa told this newspaper last year the children created cars and fans out of empty Anchor milk cartons, and she hopes the creativity in this year’s competition will move to the next level. 

However, during the school visits to launch the promotion, the principals and teachers alerted the competition’s organisers to an issue – teachers put together the art work instead of the students. But Peniata Naisoli of Ah Liki Wholesale, in response to their concerns, said they created a system to tackle that problem.  

“The creative art pieces will be submitted directly to the SCOPA Hall at Vaivase, and each school will be handed a registered code. That code will only be known between the principal and the person that handed it.

“Neither any of us at the company nor the judges will be aware of these registered codes – this way we can avoid any bias during the competition,” he said.

The competition’s promotion period runs from March 1-20. 

The company will be launching their Anchor promotion with Primary Schools in Savaii, starting next week.