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Attending The Epoch Times photo contest was a great honour for me. I am so pleased that my photo could achieve this success just by its feeling and simplicity and without consideration of nationality, language, and culture, but instead relying on the common human language, which is kindness, love, and friendship.
Undoubtedly, this is the result expected from the art of photography. I am sure that all the photos submitted—having arisen from the hearts of thousands of gifted, loving, and kind photographers worldwide—were nice and perhaps even better than my own. For this reason, I was very honoured to be one of the contest’s participants.
With regard to the competition prize and remitting the cheque from your esteemed organization, I have been very touched by the recent earthquake in Haiti and the very touching scenes of those who remained alive, especially the children.
I have an 11-year-old daughter Reyhaneh who has a special disease and needs blood injections every 20 days at a cost of some hundreds of dollars. Perhaps this prize money could provide a little help for her treatment, but Reyhaneh and I have decided that, since we share the pain of the Haitian children, and while we respect your esteemed organization and the $500 third prize from the contest, we would nonetheless like to use this money to aid the Haitian, earthquake-stricken children. Therefore, kindly send this sum to Haiti, in any way you think is better, in cash or goods.
Maybe some think that differences in culture, language, nationality, and colour keep human beings from relating to one another, but this is not so. All mankind has a great thing in common—their loving and kind hearts, which bring friendship and sympathy when others suffer hardship.
I pray for a world without oppression or poverty.
Saeed Hasanabbasi
Tehran, Iran
Mr. Saeed Hasanabbasi won the third prize in the landscape category of The Epoch Times 2009 International Photo Contest for his photo “Life with Clouds.” He returned his prize cheque with this letter.
