“For me, the highlight of this event was listening to the winners and learning about their amazing essays and creative ideas.”
On Friday, 18th June 2022. I attended the Emeraldscape Environmental Development Annual World Environment Day Prize Giving Ceremony as a representative for SustyVibes. The event was held in commemoration of World Environment Day to celebrate and award the top five winners in their Annual Writing Competition for students in Nigerian tertiary institutions. The event was held at Westwood Hotel, Lagos State, Nigeria.
The event was well attended by key stakeholders in the environmental sustainability sector including Mrs Temitope Okunnu, founder of FABE foundation, Temitope Lawal, communications lead at Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation, Mr Taiwo Adewole, Managing Director of WasteXChange Nigeria, Mrs Agharese Onaghese Executive Secretary of Food & Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), Mrs Udechukwu E.A representative of the Director) National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency Lagos Operations Office (NESREA) and several others. For a more inclusive event, students and staff of secondary schools were also invited to participate at the event. I was able to spot schools like Obele Community Senior High School, Surulere Lagos, New Era Girls Secondary School, Surulere Lagos, Aguda Junior Grammar School, Surulere Lagos and Queen’s College, Yaba all in attendance.
At the event members of the above organizations shared enlightening goodwill speeches which included commendations for the EMEND team, as well as actionable steps that we can take to protect our Only One Earth, including encouraging the use of social media to spread awareness, avoiding littering, recycling waste products and so on. In my goodwill speech, I shared about our work at SustyVibes particularly the use of different art forms and social media to promote a sustainable lifestyle, and also noted that monetary incentive is a great way to encourage youth involvement in sustainability and commended the EMEND team for this effort.
For me, the highlight of this event was listening to the winners and learning about their amazing essays and creative ideas. The first-place winner Caleb Anthony Osagie, a student from the University of Benin shared how his essay was inspired by the waste culture in his environment where students brought their waste from their homes and dropped them at a nearby bush. Caleb’s win has also inspired him to launch a recycling campaign in his city and I look forward to seeing this actualized! The second runner-up, Samuel Adeboye shared how his winning speech was inspired by Thanos a supervillain from the Avengers movie “Infinity War” and “End Game”, he explained how the two movies have great references to environmental sustainability and detail the effect of overpopulation and human activities on the Earth as underlying themes.
Asides from the winners, Mrs Temitope Okunnu and Mrs Agharese Onaghese from the FABE foundation and the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance respectively were surprised with awards for Environmental Awards of Excellence for their contributions to SDG 4, 13 and 17 through providing education on climate action and partnership for the goals.
We love to see creative ways of raising awareness of climate action and SustyVibes is grateful for the invitation.