Two sisters win Diana award for Photocause humanitarian project
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Shanaya and Nayantara Perera
Sisters Shanaya and Nayantara Perera received the ‘‘ Diana Award Role of Honour-2019’ for their project Photocause. One of the highest accolades a young person can achieve for social action or humanitarian efforts, the Diana Award selects youth who have been serving their communities and creating long lasting changes on a global scale. Shanaya and Nayantara were awarded this recognition on July 1 for the impact they have created with Photocause.
After losing a loved one to cancer, the sisters turned to photography to generate funds for cancer awareness projects. The two Bridgetians, displayed an exceptional talent in photography at quite a young age. It was in 2011 that they launched Photocause.lk which stands for ‘photography for a cause’ – a cancer engagement project that is focused mainly on two projects, ‘Photocause & friends’ and ‘Awake and Click Off Cancer’.
The former project works towards collecting funds for The Sri Lanka Cancer Society by photography competitions and exhibitions. Thus far there have been exhibitions in 2015 and 2017. The latter is an awareness project where the message of ‘early detection saves lives’ is spread. In order to publicize this message a print magazine named ‘Awake and Click Off Cancer’, was launched targeting 20 schools and a social media campaign took off in 2017. Seven videos have been launched with each averaging around 20,000 views.
You can follow the work of Photocause.lk on their website - http://www.photocause.lk/ or Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Photocauselk/325334400998875