Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Mercy Technical High School, Nbawsi in Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area of Abia State, has emerged winners of the 2023 Action for Earth Global Youth Summit (GYS) competition held in Quy Nhon, Vietnam.
Action for Earth Global Youth Summit (GYS) is a platform for youths from various countries to network and discuss collectively how to solve some of the world’s green complex problems and is designed to be an organisational framework for educational cum eco-business for Singapore.
The galant team of the same school had finished top in the 2022 edition of the competition.
The Abia school featured in the global championship with the best innovative project.
Master Onwere Chinwekele Casmir, a 14-year, Senior Secondary 2 (SS2) student entered the competition which lasted from August 21 till August 31, 2023, with an affordable solar dryer designed to be used in drying fish and vegetables.
The school had registered 12-year old Chioma Favour Akaeme, an SS1 student, then, from Isuikwuato, who stunned the world by clinching the top spot with her solar kit project in the 2022 edition of the GYS held in Singapore
Ikengaonline reports that GYS is one of the few Singapore events that cut across different sectors: youths, environment, education, social entrepreneurship with the goal of changing mindset of the community.
According to the organisers of the global event, about 4,500 youths, aged 12 to 23 years old, from the ASEAN and Asia Pacific have attended GYS since its inaugural launch in 2014.
They said the summits had impacted more than 200,000 students and the community through school exchanges and community outreach activities.
Incorporated in the GYS, is an innovative and creative competition among students from different countries who showcase their projects on ways to solve varying global issues, ranging from business to climate change.
In addition to discussing global environmental concerns, the summits engage in community outreach with visits to the host country’s successful and sustaining environmental projects such as water treatment plant, energy processing plant, waste to energy sites,
among others.
In this year’s edition, participants constructed green innovative projects over the week-long summit; and were inspired by speakers and successful innovative projects.
The innovative and creative competition was split into two categories: the first for young minds, aged 10-13; and the senior category for students aged 14- 23.
It was in the Senior category competition that Onwere Chinwekele Casmir represented his school, Mercy Technical High School, Nbawsi, run by the congregation of Daughters of Mary Mother of Mercy of the Catholic Church, Umuahia Diocese.
Master Onwere was the only African that participated in the competition, alongside hundreds of other students from the host country, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Philippines.
During the competition, the young innovators had the task of presenting their projects to the audience and judges and answer the barrage of questions that followed, after which the audience voted and scores obtained during voting determine the fate of each participating student.
Reacting to the great feat, the elated Principal of Mercy Technical High School, Rev. Sister Lilian Chibiko, described her experience of the 2023 GYS as awesome.
“It was an awesome display of green innovations by youth from Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Nigeria for a cleaner and healthier environment,” she said.
She congratulated Master Onwere and other members of the team for making her school, Abia State, Nigeria and Africa proud.
