The Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Leyla Aliyeva, has been awarded the Special International Honorary Prize “For the Protection of the Ecological Environment.”

On April 6–7, the VI International Project Olympiad on “Environmental Protection” (“Inepo-Eurasia”) was held in Baku.

The Olympiad was organized jointly by the Ministries of Education, Ecology, and Natural Resources, the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the “Çağ” Educational Enterprises Company, and the “Inepo-Eurasia” Environmental Public Union, with informational support from the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company.

The purpose of the Olympiad was to inform the younger generation about solving ecological problems and protecting the environment, to cultivate a sensitive attitude toward nature among schoolchildren, to develop ecological awareness, to involve them in various projects aimed at addressing environmental issues, and to instill a spirit of preserving natural, cultural, historical, and socio-aesthetic values.

The International Project Olympiad on “Environmental Protection” was first held in 2007 with the participation of schoolchildren from 17 countries and has since become a tradition. This year, nearly 400 students from 42 countries around the world earned the right to participate in the Olympiad. Out of 350 projects submitted from foreign countries, 130, and out of 294 projects from Azerbaijan, 60 were evaluated by the jury. The countries represented in this year’s Olympiad included Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Indonesia, Lithuania, Thailand, Laos, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Romania, Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Vietnam, Yemen, Somalia, Angola, Bulgaria, Zambia, Niger, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Egypt, Mongolia, Mozambique, the Czech Republic, and Belgium. In this year’s Olympiad, Azerbaijan won 4 gold, 12 silver, and 17 bronze medals.

This year, based on the recommendation of the winners, the organizers and the jury of the Olympiad presented the Special International Honorary Prize “For the Protection of the Ecological Environment” to Leyla Aliyeva, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Founder of the International Dialogue Initiative on Environmental Protection.