Basseterre: St. Kitts, Wednesday, March 29, 2023: Both primary and secondary schools in St. Kitts vied for the opportunity to be awarded the victor’s title in the Water Services World Water Day competition 2023. The schools competition, one of the activities held during the Water Services Week (March 19 – 28) focused on the global theme “Accelerating Change”. Primary Schools participated in the Door Decorating Competition while the secondary schools participated in the Social Media/TikTok competition.
Addressing the participants and school representatives, Minister with responsibility for Water Services, Hon. Konris Maynard expressed the imperative for water conservation and the importance of youth involvement in sharing the need for society to conserve water.
“Children are one of the most effective means of communicating information as they will share the information in the manner it was received. Today, I want you [students] to not only be the champions who won the TikTok and Door Decorating competitions. I want you to become water champions”, the Minister stated. “I want you to tell your parents, classmates, your uncles, aunts that we cannot waste the water or else when you get older, when you want to build a house, when you want to live in St. Kitts and Nevis we will have no more water.” The Verchilds High School emerged victorious in the secondary school competition, second place was captured by the Washington Archibald high School while the Charles E Mills Secondary School earned third place.
Mr. Miguel Thomas, Principal of the Verchilds High School shared brief remarks on the school’s win “Here at the Verchilds High School we pride ourselves in participating in an array of activities that will help to develop our students holistically. We know that water is one of those natural resources that is threatened and we [VHS] thought it best to show the world the importance or the value of conserving that precious resource and our students Lasahni Burke, Ade-Farai Alcee, Desanique Wrensford, and Alika Peets, all of Form 2 demonstrated to the world that they have a pretty good understanding of what it is to preserve water. They were assisted by the teachers from the Social Sciences Department who joined forces and came up with a beautiful end product. I am quite ecstatic that our students were in a position to demonstrate to the world they are in the fight to help save one of our most precious natural resources. Much commendation to them [teachers and students] and we will continue to ensure that our students are involved in an array of curricular and non-curricular activities that contribute to their holistic development.”
The champion spot for the primary school level was captured by Ross Preparatory. Beach Allen and Dean Glasford Primary school were awarded second and third place respectively.
Extending congratulations to her students on their win Mrs. Michelle Phillip-Mitchell, Principal at Ross Preparatory remarked, “The Ross Prep community is really proud of our students, our third grade students in particular for the effort and creativity they have put into the execution of this display. Much thanks to Ms. Elicia for working with the students and thanks to the Water Services Department for providing opportunities such as this where students can bring attention to a cause that impacts everyone on island but do it in such a creative way.”
The activities sought to encourage students to become advocates for water conservation, agitators for positive change in water usage habits as they inspire not only their peers but the general community to become ‘water wise’. World Water Day is celebrated annually on March 22nd.