Rhino Mania teaches sustainability with art

Rhino Mania teaches sustainability with art
Duratex's initiative promotes project combining artistic and environmental
education.
To preserve endangered species, to study wildlife and how to work as a team.
Rhino Mania, sponsored by Duratex, will combine environmental education and art
education in a project that will culminate in the decoration of a mini rhinoceros
fiberglass sculpture. The project will be implemented in 125 public schools in cities
where the company's industrial units and forestry units are located, reaching a
universe of more than 4,000 students in 3rd, 4th and 5th years of elementary
school I, aged 7 to 10.
The schools enrolled in the program were indicated by the education secretariats of
the Agudos, Botucatu, Itapetininga, Jundiaí, Lençóis Paulista, São Paulo (São Paulo
State), Uberaba, Estrela do Sul (Minas Gerais State), São Leopoldo, Taquari (Rio
Grande do Sul State) and Cabo de Santo Agostinho (Pernambuco State) municipal
administrations.
Rhino Mania will also promote training workshops with over 200 teachers involved
in the project. They will receive the "Teacher's Notebook" with all necessary
information about the design and painting kits, each containing a set of different
sized brushes, a foam roller, 6 colors of acrylic paint, 2 cloths, white glue, 4 x 2B
pencils, and varnish. Two hundred and twenty 1.20 × 0.80 cm baby rhino
sculptures will be made available to schools, and will be decorated by the students
by October 10. Students who do not paint the rhinos will participate in the project
producing drawings, murals and stories about rhinos and endangered animals.
The small rhinos will be exhibited in their cities until November 15, after which they
will be "adopted" by the schools.
Rhino Mania
The educational project is part of a great commemorative action to celebrate
Duratex's 60th anniversary: Rhino Mania will transform the city of São Paulo into a
colorful urban savannah, a major open air exhibition with 60 rhino sculptures
painted by artists chosen in a public selection in the Facebook social network. 15
other sculptures, also selected in the same process, will become part of a traveling
exhibition that will tour 11 cities in which there are Duratex industrial and forestry
units: Agudos, Lençóis Paulista, Itapetininga, Botucatu, Jundiaí, Taquari, São
Leopoldo, Uberaba, Estrela do Sul, Cabo de Santo Agostinho and João Pessoa.
About Duratex
Duratex S.A. is a private, publicly traded Brazilian company with shared control by
Itaúsa - Investimentos Itaú S.A and Companhia Ligna de Investimentos
conglomerates.
The company is the largest industrialized wood panel, sanitary ware and metal
fittings manufacturer in the Southern Hemisphere, and. the leading manufacturer in
the Brazilian market of laminated flooring under the Durafloor brand, and of
sanitary ware and metal fittings under the Deca and Hyrdra brands.
The company is headquartered in São Paulo and has around 10 thousand
employees in 14 industrial units strategically located in the states of São Paulo, Rio
Grande do Sul, Pernambuco, Paraíba and Rio de Janeiro, as well as a unit in
Argentina. Duratex has 225 thousand hectares of cultivated forests and
conservation areas in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul.