Tree Competition - Awards Ceremony

This year I coordinated the nationwide Gambia All Schools Tree Nursery Competition in the lower (elementary) and upper (middle) basic schools in the Gambia with representatives from the Department of Education, National Environment Agency and the Department of Forestry. The number of participating schools has fallen over the past three years. We decided to hold an awards ceremony to generate excitement about the competition.

We held the first ever awards ceremony at the first place school to celebrate the successes of the top three schools. It was a great event with food, music, songs, and dancing. We invited high ranking government officials and the media to attend. The second and third place schools sent representatives. We awarded prizes, garden tools, to all the schools. The event was later broadcasted on the radio throughout the entire country. It also appeared in the newspaper.

I gave a speech to introduce the competition. Representatives from each participating organization also gave short speeches about the importance of the competition to combat deforestation and teach environmental education. We had a person who translated everything from English to Mandinka, the local language. The speeches started to drag a little, but the last speaker stole the show.

The head boy of the winning school spoke a few words about why we should plant trees, and why he likes planting trees. I was surprised how good his English was for the sixth grade. It was great to see him talking about the environment. I looked around and saw how proud the other kids were to win the competition. It made all the work worthwhile. The point of the competition is to teach kids about environmental education. If we can teach them to plant trees hopefully they will remember it for the rest of their lives.