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An environmental and science communication group, Èkó EnviroTalk, has given out cash rewards to the winning schools of its Earth Day 2024 Youth Video Competition.
The cash and certificates were presented to the winning schools at Ayedere Ajibola Senior High School, Ketu, Lagos.
According to the NGO in a statement, the aim of the Earth Day 2024 Youth Video Competition is to raise awareness about plastic pollution and promote the 4Rs of waste management (reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover) among students from various schools across the state.
It stated, “In recognition of the students’ creative efforts in addressing environmental challenges, particularly plastic pollution, Odomola Senior Secondary School, Epe, emerged as the winner, receiving a cash prize of N250,000.
“Lagos State Model Senior College, Agbowa Ikosi, and Abule-Eko Community Junior Grammar School, Ijede, Ikorodu, secured the first and second runners-up, winning N150,000 and N100,000, respectively,” it stated.
The spokesperson for ÈKÓ EnviroTalk, Adedoyin Lasisi, expressed the organisation’s commitment to empowering students to become environmental stewards.
He added that the organisation was proud to support innovative solutions to environmental challenges in conjunction with the state’s Ministry of Environment and Water Resources and Ministry of Education.
‘’We have a series of programmes that are being carried out in conjunction with Lagos State, and one of the programmes is the Green Challenge. Green Challenge is an environmental quiz competition that is done online for secondary school students.
“Others are youth video competitions to commemorate Earth Day, plastic craft competitions, outdoor activities and summer camp.
‘’Thus, this year’s Earth Day was all about plastics, and schools were asked to create plastic crafts.
So they used the plastic, and the winners of the competition emerged,’’ he said.
Lasisi said,’’ We did not award the winners because schools were on holiday, and now that they have resumed, we decided to do the prize award.’’
Speaking on behalf of Odomola Senior Secondary School, Epe, a teacher from the school, Ajala Samuel, said the students’ victory was the culmination of tireless efforts to gather, sort, and creatively repurpose plastic waste.
“We are thrilled to have participated in this competition. Our students went around town collecting plastics, learned about the impact of plastic littering, and devised a solution.
“We taught about it—what can we do with plastic and what can bring a solution to the issue of plastic littering everywhere. Epe is one of the coastal areas, even though we don’t experience floods, so we decided to construct a boat that can help reduce the issue of plastic waste and have an emergency response in case of flood, so this prompted us to construct a boat with plastic, and here we are, it emerged as the winner.
“We appreciate an initiative like this that came up. This is a big encouragement to us. There is still more that is coming from this initiative, and we believe we will do better. This initiative is a huge encouragement to us. We believe it will inspire even greater achievements,” Samuel noted.
The students’ award-winning project was a boat constructed from recycled plastic, designed to address plastic waste and provide emergency response during floods in coastal areas like Epe.
