22 Mar SULTAN TURKI SCHOOL WIN INAUGRAL MEDRC ECO SCHOOL PRIZE

Sultan Turki bin Said School in South Sharqiya have been announced as the overall winners of the MEDRC ECO SCHOOL PRIZE at a ceremony held at MEDRC’s Headquarters.

Sponsored by Oman LNG Development Foundation, the inaugural inter-school competition was launched by MEDRC in November of 2022. The prize is designed to build greater water and energy awareness among school students in Oman by teaching them of the importance of both and why conservation of natural resources is vital for sustainable development.

MEDRC’s Center Director Ciarán Ó Cuinn said, “We congratulate the students and teachers of Sultan Turki bin Said School in South Sharqiya for their great achievement. MEDRC is proud to work with Oman LNG on this fantastic initiative. ”

Five schools (Sultan Turki bin Said school, Qulhat school, Alwafi school, Blad bani Bu Hasan and Sultan bin Murshid school) were nominated by the South Sharquiya office of the Directorate General of Education to compete for the prize. Each school appointed a student steering committee to draft and enact a school conservation policy, measure and record improvements in usage and to help spread a message of conservation throughout the schools and their communities. Students implemented awareness campaigns through social media campaigns and by mounting posters at water and energy points of use throughout the school, urging students to be proactive and to adopt simple but effective measures such as; reporting water leaks, turning off dripping taps, turning off the lights and AC in unused rooms and setting AC thermostat to an optimum temperature.

To showcase the learning and understanding developed by the students throughout the competition, they worked on creating engaging short videos for social media distribution. The pupils/students were solely responsible for ideation, planning, storyboard, recording and editing of the projects.

Rawnaq Al Rajhi, a student of Bilad Bani Buhassan school, won the award for best video for her work on a thoughtful and educational video clip. The winning videos will be available to view on the MEDRC Eco school Prize Instagram page.