Prestancia College wins environmental competition

NDN Staffer

OKAHANDJA, Mar. 15 – Prestancia College in Okahandja walked away with the N$ 8000 first prize as winners of the FNB Global United Recycle Art competition. Eden Combined School won second place, while Five Rand Primary School received the third prize. A total of 13 schools participated in the competition and participating learners were from all age groups.

Global Climate team hands out t-shirts to teachers from the various schools

Wolfgang Schenk, one of the organisers of the event elaborates: “The FNB Global United Recycle Art Competition was held for the second time after a very successful competition in Gobabis last year. The team of judges, consisting of seven Global United players and myself from Gee Om! judged the exhibits according to numerous criteria.”

Eden Combined School managed to get second place

Wolfgang noted that the winning school, Prestancia College, excelled as they had covered the three themes, useful product, decorative product and most of all learning materials with high efficiency. FNB sponsored prize money of N$ 7000 for first prize and the Mayor of Okahandja, Honourable Hindjou, increased the prize amount for the winner with N$1000. “Eden Combined School made the cut as they focused on producing learning material for classes by making different geometrical forms from paper mash, and the Five Rand Primary School had a good array of products bringing across both the environmental and the educative aspects.”

Learner Monica Kamongwa, of the winning school said: “I am very happy that we won. We participated to encourage our fellow learners and to introduce them to the Environmental Club. Our school is new, and this was an opportunity to promote our school and build a positive image in our community. This is a first for our school and we look forward to teaching each other on the many ways we can keep our school and town clean by Reducing, Reusing and Recycling. The experience taught us team work, trust and that all things are possible if you work hard. It was really fun.”

Milly !Garus -Oas, a teacher at Eden also commented: “It was a great experience, and we can now educate those in our community about the importance of recycling and also encourage them that we can only go further. Thank you Global United and FNB for the opportunity. With the prize money we can now build and renovate the playground for the pre-primary section.”

Five Rand Primary school pulled in at third place

Special prizes were awarded to two additional schools, JG van der Walt who delivered the best verbal presentation of their exhibits, clearly explaining how they addressed the recycling issue, the benefits of using the materials they used and the message on keeping your environment clean though not littering and up-cycling. The Okahandja Learning Centre produced a sculpture that gave a very clear and strong message on the dangers of plastic littering. It showed a dead animal in an environment littered with all kinds of problematic plastics. It was very clear that this animal had died due to feeding on these materials with plastic bags and bottles protruding from its intestines. This exhibit gave a glaring image of a major problem that many communities around our country have due to littering, leading to material harm of community members.