The end of year S4P competition in Parramatta included just one category – speaking.  The topic was the same as the national one:  Trees, the Guardians of Life. This special high school competition was organised with the support of the City of Parramatta Council. It included junior and senior categories.

Here are our winners:

Senior group: 

• Winner:  Mia
• Runner-up:  Annoushka Maikap

Junior group

• Winner:  Sophie
• Runner-up:  Sameera Rajendram

Please listen to this wonderful winning speech by Mia from Our Lady of Mercy College Parramatta:

“Mother Nature urges humanity to safeguard Earth’s guardians—trees—warning of a bleak future without them, while challenging humans to protect and restore our planet”.

The topic was Speaking for those species that cannot Speak. Students participated in teams of 4 and in 4 different categories: speaking, drama, art, and writing.

Vu Thi Bao Quynh, a student, said: “Due to the high profit, and personal benefits, the human being keeps being emotionless and does not care for the painfulness and exhaustion of the naive victims. Chasing the monetary benefits, human beings do not know that poaching wildlife is the first step to make their natural habitats deducing and destroyed, to destroy ecology, and that leads to consequences such as natural disasters, earthquakes, forest burning, etc. Then human beings themselves have to suffer the consequences they create by themselves. Eventually, they are their own victims.”

Thang Le, the artist, is one of the judges and he commented on the first prize: “Participants from Ton Duc Thang Highschool are very skillful in drawing, have good skills in arrangement and construction of the drawing elements. The content of the drawing shows their messages – let’s stop poaching, and trading naive wild animals before too late. Let’s together protect them, love them, and create a peaceful planet for human beings and wild animals“.

There were team awards and prizes for the best in each category.

• The First Team Award belongs to Ton Duc Thang High School.
• The Second Team Award belongs to Da Teh High School.
• The Third Team Award belongs to Thong Nhat High School.
• Doan Ket High School got the Best Slogan prize.
• Cat Tien High School got the Best Speech prize.
• Da Teh High School got the Best Drama Performance prize.
• Ton Duc Thang High School got the Best Artwork prize. To get this amazing artwork idea, 29 classes in the school had joined in the inner competition in their school and had chosen the best work for the official competition with other schools.

Mr. Nguyen Van Binh, Principal of Ton Duc Thang Highschool, said he hoped that the S4P competition would be organized annually in Cat Tien so all schools would get a chance to connect, learn, and share knowledge related to wildlife conservation all together.

S4P congratulates CTNP for the very professional way in which the competition was planned and conducted. A very high-quality event. Hard-working staff. Thanks to all the sponsors for their generous support: USAID, WWF, Bellalove Foundation, Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, HDBank, and Mernard.

The event was written on popular newspapers and national media.

The students speak for the wildlife on Saigon Tiep Thi Học sinh lên tiếng vì động vật hoang dã (sgtiepthi.vn)

Speak for species who are unable to speak, on Nong Nghiep.vn Giới trẻ lên tiếng: Nói thay những loài không thể nói (nongnghiep.vn)

Ton Duc Thang Highschool students draw artwork about condemning illegal wildlife trade, on Law and Life online magazine, Học sinh trường THPT Tôn Đức Thắng vẽ tranh lên án hành vi buôn bán động vật hoang dã trái phép (luatvadoisong.vn)

Councils from around Australia helped fund this year’s competition and support students in their LGAs to participate.

The competition attracted nearly 100 entries coming from 05 different States and Territories. We received:

• 33 speeches
• 36 artworks
• 08 pieces of performance poetry
• 20 writing pieces.

and here are our winners!

Read the detailed results in this Report.

SPEAKING

From amongst the 33, the judges found a winner and a runner-up. But they could not separate the next 3! After some deliberation, they agreed to award joint 3rd place.

The winner is Roseanna Huang from Brigidine College, St Ives, NSW.

The runner-up is Ashwini Aravinthan from Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta NSW.

Sharing Third place are:

• Sierra Lake from Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta, NSW.
• Avryl Bergado from Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta, NSW.
• Anthony Baaini from Parramatta Marist, Westmead, NSW.

WRITING

From the 22 entries, the judges selected two as joint winners in this category.

Aleksi Pearce and Nicolas Lecuna from Northside Montessori School, Pymble, NSW.

Reaching Net Zero Together
Recycle and reuse.
Reduce waste and emissions.
Research and responsibly make choices.
Run or ride to work.
Reach out and educate others.
R you ready? Earth is!

Mayurie Sivananthan from Abbotsleigh Girls College, Wahroonga, NSW.

Community in harmony, we embrace change,
Reduce energy, waste, and transport’s carbon range.
Together we build a city,
sustainable and bright,
For healthier lives, a future shining with light.

ART

Another tough category to judge. There were 36 artworks in total. Our judges (in three different countries) finally settled on these as the winners.

First: Isabella Wu from Abbotsleigh Girls College, Wahroonga, NSW.

Second: Meera Nirmalendran, Abbotsleigh Girls College, Wahroonga, NSW

Highly commended:

• Aaron Chevalier from Parramatta Marist High School, Westmead, NSW.
• Rafael Palad from Parramatta Marist High School.
• Annemieke Earp from Home Schooling, Alice Springs, Northern Territory.

PERFORMANCE POETRY

For only the second time, we included this category in the S4P competition. Eight students participated. Perhaps it’s a new medium for lots of students. It invites creativity in text and actions.

First place
McKayla Tan from Ravenswood School for Girls, “The Weather Report”.

Second place
Beatrice Broad from Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar College.

Highly commended
Victoria Chu from Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School.

Thanks to all the Councils around Australia that supported this inaugural national S4P competition.

Thanks for the ongoing support from Paddy Pallin and the Sutherland Shire Environment Centre.

And thanks to the brave participants who put themselves and their ideas out to the world.