AIS is British Council’s ‘Your World Competition’ champion

The Akosombo International School (AIS) has emerged national and regional winners of this year’s ‘Your World Competition’, instituted six years ago by the British Council for its Partner Schools Global Network (PSGN).

By this the AIS has emerged three time national winners in a row having won the climate change-based video competition since it made its first appearance in 2019.

Over the past six years, the British Council through its PSGN has been organising the video challenge for its partner schools who take UK qualifications (IGCSE/GCSE/O and A-Level) examinations to help in the fight against climate change and other global issues.

The five-member team which represented the AIS included; Jeffrey Churchill Adei, Jonas Kwasi Barimah Asare Boateng and  Anastasia Hewlett; all final year students; and Roberta Obiribea Aduama and Akua Oforiwaa Omane-Manu, second year students with support from Princess Ijeoma Emmanuel and Albert Yalley, the head prefect.

For their price, the team members received certificates of participation with the school receiving three certificates and three plaques, representing two national awards for 2020 and 2021 and one regional award for 2021. 

At an award presentation ceremony in Accra on Friday, Chikodi Onyemerela, Director, Programmes and Partnerships, British Council, Ghana, commended AIS for presenting the best video and winning the competition and in the process emerging Sub-Saharan Africa regional winners for the first time. 

The rationale behind the initiative, Mr Onyemerela said was not just to win awards but challenge the creative abilities of the participating schools to showcase their talents to find solutions to “our fragile world to win the fight against climate change.”

“We are looking for the best innovative approach to transform and sustain our stay here on earth. So initiatives of this nature are what we want to see more,” he stated.

The Assistant Headmistress, in-charge of Academics, AIS, Mrs Sarah Freda Adei, said this year’s competition which was organised on the theme, ‘Building a Brighter Future,’ tasked the students to make a three-minute video of a social action project that focused on a specified issue related to an identified problem such as sustainable development and building resilience. 

This, she said, gave an opportunity for the students from around the world to use their creative ideas and connect with each other while providing a window into their unique lives, environments and experiences. 

Mrs Adei who has been supervising and providing tutelage to the team for the successive wins over the past three years, noted that aside the competitive nature of the challenge, she always impressed on the students to see it as a clarion call to find solutions to global problems.

“This always provides a compelling reason for us to compete through effective collaboration and self-organizing methodology to bring solutions.”

Mr. Eric Mensah Bonsu, Director, Human Resources at the Volta River Authority (VRA) who has oversight responsibility on VRA Schools thanked British Council for using an educational challenge to find sustainable solutions to climate change and urged the students to work hard to be part of a solution to global crises.