Abia school conquers the world again

*As student of Mercy Technical High School emerges champion at 2023 global youth summit

From Boniface Okoro, Umuahia

A Nigerian Secondary school, Mercy Technical High School, Nbawsi in Isiala Ngwa North local government area of Abia State has won the 2023 Action Earth Global Youth Summit (GYS) staged in Quy Nhon, Vietnam, a feat the school had equally achieved in the 2022 edition of the competition.

Mercy Technical High School produced the student judged to have stormed the 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

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.

GYS is also 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.

Records show that collectively, 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.

The organisers said the summits have 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, incineration, plant, nature reserves, among others, to learn how the city made progress in coping with their environmental challenges.

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 is split into two categories: the first is 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.

Casmir Chinwekele Onwere, the 14 year-old SS2 Student from Isiala Ngwa North, Abia State, entered the competition with an affordable solar dryer project designed to be used in drying fish and vegetables. The project was designed in line with the mission of his school to reduce pollution.

Already, the school is engaged in a biogas project championed by the Principal, Rev. Sister Lilian Ifeoma Chibiko, a member of the congregation of Daughters of Mary Mother of Mercy (DMMM). The biogas project has seen the school build solar energy as its source of power supply, just as many students have been trained to assemble, install solar lights and service solar panels.

Casmir said initially, he was frightened but his confidence was reinforced by the memory of the difficulties they experienced before and when they embarked on the trip to Vietnam. Then, he mustered the courage to face the “world.”                           

An 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 for making her school, Abia State Nigeria and Africa proud. The Principal also extended her heartfelt congratulations to the other finalists and the top three winners in both the Junior and Senior Categories of the championships at the summit. 

She also thanked the judges from Vietnam, Mongolia, Indonesia, Nigeria and Malaysia for their impartial and strict judgement during the competition.