Exploring Space Week 2018 with colours and stargazers

EMK Centre hosted World Space Week 2018 celebrations, an event that started on the 3rd of October and ending yesterday, on the 7th of October. Located on Dhanmondi 27, EMK Centre had planned out four days worth of events, workshops and activities for everyone to take part in. The event was co-organised by SPSB, Inclusion X, Cartoon People, Bangladesh Olympiad Blog, Bangladesh Astronomical Society, Universe Awareness, and IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach and others.

The event had different schedules for each day of the event but it mostly focused on tour sessions for visiting groups, movies and documentaries, stargazing, colouring, quiz competition and display booths setup by space and astronomy enthusiast communities such as, EMK Makerlab. It was a refreshing take on bringing space and community together and as Md. Afzal Siddique, Assistant Coordinator of EMK Makerlab, said, "The goal we had for Space Week was to get the people of Bangladesh to start taking an interest in space exploration and science. And we have seen many young people take an interest in this event, coming in groups from schools and colleges so we want to continue pursuing this each year to inspire these individuals."

 One of the key co-organizers of the event were the Cartoon People, who had a colouring session open to everyone on Day 2 and a workshop on the 4th day of the event. They have been hosting the Desi Character Drawing Challenge competition at EMK for quite some time now and when EMK Centre approached them to co-organize the event with them, it was a no brainer for them. Operations in Charge of Cartoon People, Junaid Iqbal Ishmam said, "This is a great initiative, one that can inspire the kids to draw, paint and take an interest in coding, science and space exploration for the future."