| Giraffe Centre crowns young environmentalists |
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A boy from Mountain View Academy and a girl from Mary hill school in Thika will early next month be crowned Master and Miss environment respectively during the world environmental week; after they emerged winners in the environmental competition for youths, organized by the Giraffe Centre. The two top winners submitted essays in all the categories in the competition and performed highly, attaining  70 per cent marks in their work. The competition, which run from January to the end of March with ‘Our Environment, Our Survival’ as the theme saw over 4000 entrants in different categories including art work, essays and photography; with the essay category getting most of the entrants. The Giraffe Centre has been running environmental competition for over a decade now, with prize giving day being held during the word environmental week, but this year the competition got more entrants especially from new schools, including from five special schools. All participants performed ‘exemplary well’ said Emmanuel, the education Asistant manager, because the content was narrowed down to something that the youths ‘could connect to.’ ‘The theme of the competition was very relevant because the kids could connect to what happened last year-the climate change, water scarcity,’ he said Marking of the submitted work was done in April by external markers from Kenya Wildlife Service, Wildlife club of Kenya and Youth for conservation as well as by internal markers who came up with the final list of winners. Two kids from special schools-Machakos School for the deaf and Kerugoya School for the deaf will also be crowned merit award winners for performing well in the competition despite their special needs. Presided over by Ms,Rubina Aaron, the regional representative East and South region World Wild life Fund (WWF) as the guest of honour, the prize giving day will see 67 participants being awarded trophies for emerging the best, and 121 runners-up getting ‘consolation prizes’ including T shirts, books vouchers, meal vouchers and shopping vouchers among others. There will also be revolving trophies to be awarded winning schools. Trophy winners from upper primary and high School and provisional representatives drawn from the first runners up will also get a chance to go for an end of year safari which covers six days for the primary school kids and seven days for the high school kids, cutting across almost all ecosystems including Mt.Kenya, The Rift Valley, north Eastern and Maasai Mara; to give them a ‘good exposure’ for them to understand our environment and the problem it is facing. The prize giving day event, which will run from 1pm-4pm on 4th June, will include songs and poetry presentations from the various schools, as well as speeches by the guest of honor and the Chairman of AFEW-Mr., Rick Anderson. The giraffe centre last month received two new giraffes-Jock Junior, a male giraffe who is now the breeding male at the centre, replacing Jock, who died of old age in July last year; and Carol a female giraffe who was brought to accompany Jock junior, both brought from Kruger farm in Eldoret.The two were captured in march but brought to the centre in April, making eight, the total number of giraffes currently at the centre. |
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