Animated superhero Hai Moc Nhi drawn by 12-year-old Vietnamese Nguyen Ngoc Gia Han.
Photo courtesy of UNICEF. 

UNICEF is celebrating Earth Day, April 22, with a cartoon on climate change inspired superhero drawings by 12-year-old Nguyen Ngoc Gia Han. 

The cartoon, called "Hai Moc Nhi" (the name given to a superhero) centers around a heroine with superpowers that allow her to awaken and unite people to combat climate change. The animation is based on an original story and drawings by Han.

"Through the story, I would like to tell everyone that climate change is threatening our lives and we can only protect ourselves by joining hands with each other. Hai Moc Nhi’s superpower is the power of the Dragon father and the Fairy mother, the superpowers of the ocean and forest, which is already inside all Vietnamese people," Han said.

A Vietnamese legend said their first 100 ancestors were the children of a dragon father and a fairy mother.

Han won third prize at the Superhero Comic Contest which had asked children to create a superhero who can save the earth and fight against natural disasters and climate change. The contest was organized last year by UNICEF, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Young Pioneer Council with support from Vietnamese singer Le Cat Trong Ly.

Han’s work was picked by DeeDee, a Vietnamese animation studio, which transformed Han's creative ideas into an animation video.

Dang Hai Quang, founder of DeeDee Animation Studio, said: "Children’s imagination is without limit. Turning their ideas into visual images is both exciting and challenging. With this animation, we hope to contribute to raising awareness of the public about climate change as well as encouraging children to be creative and express themselves."

Through this project, UNICEF sought to prod people into thinking about the impact of climate change on child survival and development, as well as future risks.

Rana Flowers, UNICEF Representative in Vietnam, said: "On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the unfolding Covid-19 crisis has taught us some valuable lessons for how we should honor and protect the only earth we have. It has reminded us of how precious life is, how important clean air is for our lungs, how vital access to clean, running water is to our health, to protecting us from disease – the world can come together to solve big problems, but we need to act today to ensure the future of our children."

UNICEF said another animation film based on drawings of the contest’s first prize winner will be released later this year.