The Ministry of the Presidency, Department of Environment (DoE) has awarded 23 youths for their participation in the secondary school and post-secondary school youth competitions designed to push its environmental agenda.

The competitions were held between May and July of this year and focused on essay writing, model making, poetry, painting and debates.

According to director of the department, Ndibi Schwiers, the competitions were organised to get young people involved in critical national issues.

“You are not the future, you are the now,” she affirmed, adding: “Your ideas are what we need to ensure that we put them into practise to solving some of the more pressing issues of the country.”

Project manager of Rio Conventions Mainstreaming project, Michelle Klass said the objective of the competition was to create opportunities for children and youth to explore innovative ways to mitigate environmental problems in Guyana.

There were 18 submissions for the essay competition; 13 painting submissions; 20 poems and one model. That gave a total of 52 entries, which came from 49 students, from four schools in Region Four. The schools that participated were Queen’s College, Diamond Secondary School, Tutorial High School and the Lusignan/ Good Hope Learning Centre.

There were also teams debating in three individual rounds. Diamond Secondary lost to Mackenzie High School; Annandale Secondary won against West Demerara Secondary and President’s College got the better of Zeeburg Secondary.

In addition to providing young people with opportunities to come up with innovative solutions to environmental issues, the competition was used as a tool for public awareness, particularly on the Rio Convention.

The DoE is currently implementing a project titled “Strengthening Technical Capacities to Mainstream and Monitor Rio Convention Implementation through Policy Coordination” aimed at promoting Guyana’s support for the Rio Convention. The Rio Convention encompasses the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Though the competitions have concluded, Schwiers said her department will continue to work along with schools to promote environmental awareness.

She also encouraged the students to develop environmental clubs. “We believe that solutions to our most pressing problems will come from you,” she said.