Students set record for world’s longest painting in Dubai

20,000 PUPILS DAUB COLOURS AT DUBAI AUTODROME TO RAISE AUTISM AWARENESS

More than 20,000 students, teachers, parents and activists came together to create the world’s longest painting yesterday, as part of a campaign to raise awareness about autism.

The painting that measures 10.85km beats the threemonth old record of a 10km painting held by a Chinese group. The previous record was also created by schoolchildren.

A Guinness World Records official, who was present to witness the world record at Dubai Autodrome, confirmed the successful attempt to create the world’s longest painting.

“It’s official, Dubai now has the world record for the longest painting measuring 10.85km. We physically measured the painting twice and are happy to award another interesting record to Dubai, which is the city with most records in the region,” said Samer Khallfouf, Project Manager of Guinness World Records, Middle East and North Africa.

Eight-month campaign

The eight-month campaign titled ‘I’m Different Just Like You’ was spearheaded by the Al Tayer Group in partnership with the Dubai Autism Centre, involving children from schools managed by Taaleem and Gems Education groups.

Children ages two to 18 were involved in the campaign that saw them take part in a series of assemblies, where they learnt about autism and the importance of being more accepting of the differences of their peers. Each participating child painted a self portrait holding the hand of another child symbolising the importance of connecting with others.

“We wanted to do something different and special to create awareness, so we came up with an idea of running a campaign that would engage children. We have been running campaigns to improve quality of education and interact with schoolchildren in order to have a positive impact on them.

“We have been doing this through various programmes over the last few years. This year our team decided to create greater awareness about the challenges faced by autistic children,” said Khalid Al Tayer, CEO Retail, Al Tayer Group.

Autism affects one in every 88 children in the world.

“A lot of our members are passionate about helping and touching the lives of children in a positive way and this campaign stemmed from the fact all of us wanted to do more and create awareness about autistic people that they may be different, but they are like us,” he said.

the length of the previous record for a painting in China.