Junior Graphic Essay Competition: President presents awards to winners

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Monday presented awards to the 10 finalists of the Junior Graphic National Essay Competition (JGNEC) on the Sustainable Development Goals at the Jubilee House.

The essay competition, organised by the Junior Graphic newspaper for Upper Primary and Junior High School (JHS) students, was aimed at encouraging them to think critically and offer ideas on various topics that reflected societal development.

The competition was sponsored by BiC, TLM Ghana, producers of Graidup tablets; the Cocoa Processing Company, the SDGs Advisory Unit, Office of the President; the Ghana Library Authority and Twellium Industries.

President  Akufo-Addo receiving a citation from the winner of the Junior Graphic Essay Competition at the Jubilee House

Winners

Fourteen-year-old Mariam Aniwa, a student of the Mizpah International School in Accra, emerged the winner.

She wrote on SDG Goal 5, which talks about ‘Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls’.

The other winners were Cindy Bruce-Quaye, Fauzaan Dakurah, Hayden Emmanuel Dosseh, Adams Shamsudini Ziblim, Faatihat Umar Gminibalonno, William Nana Kwame Danso, Bernice Ackah-Swanzy, Adwoa Sedem Effah Omari and Michelle Pinaman Eku.

A delegation from the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), led by the Managing Director, Mr Ato Afful, was at the Jubilee House with the award winners to receive their certificates from the President.

Other members of the delegation were the Director of News, Mrs Mavis Kitcher; the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Kobby Asmah, and the the Editor of the Junior Graphic, Ms Doreen Hammond.

Reading

President Akufo-Addo called for the culture of reading to be promoted among Ghanaians, especially children, because that was one of the best ways to acquire knowledge and attain great heights.

He said he noticed from reading the letter that won the first prize that the winner did a lot of reading and commended her for her effort.

“You have done very well to have come to the top in this very rigorous selection process,” he told Ms Aniwa.

The President said Ms Aniwa had a strong spirit and that he would be monitoring her career closely.

He encouraged her to forge ahead with her vision for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.

He said such a struggle would not come easy, but encouraged Ms Aniwa, nonetheless, to continue with her efforts and that success would surely come her way.

Gratitude

Ms Aniwa, for her part, expressed her sincere gratitude to the organisers of the competition, which had enabled her to research and acquire a lot of knowledge about the SDGs.

She was hopeful that the goals would be achieved.

“My message to all Ghanaian students is that they should make reading a habit because that is what has brought me this far.

I hope this will serve as a motivation to all students,” she said.

Ms Aniwa presented her letter on the SDGs to the President.

Process

Mr Afful said the essay competition had been open to all children and on topics published in the Junior Graphic throughout the period of the competition and so every child in the country, irrespective of where they lived, had the opportunity to participate.

He said the selection process was stringent and all the finalists were required to write their essays at the GCGL regional offices dotted around the country to ensure that they really were the ones who wrote the essays.

Worthy collaboration

The Senior Advisor to the President on the SDGs, Dr Eugene Owusu, described as worthwhile the partnership between the SDG Office and the GCGL, which had culminated in sensitising and educating over 10,000 schoolchildren in every corner of the 16 regions on the SDGs.

He said in the spirit of the decade to the countdown on the SDGs, and in the spirit of the decade of action on the SDGs that was launched recently, the SDG Advisory Unit, in partnership with the Ministry of Planning and the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), intended to scale up its association with the GCGL.

The scale-up, he said, would take the SDGs to as many classrooms in the country as possible.