Gallery Update
GEORGE NEWS - Five schools in George did their town proud in the municipality's Energy Sustainability Competition. Stationery vouchers of up to R5 000 were distributed to the winners, with goody bags to all the learners who participated in the competition.
Of the ten participating schools, Outeniqua High and Outeniqua Primary walked away as winners with a R5 000 stationery voucher per school.
Parkdene High and Mzoxolo Primary came in second, and earned a stationery voucher of R1 500 and R2 000 respectively.
Holy Cross Primary received a stationery voucher of R1 000 as third price.
The posters were judged on the following criteria: effort, art / creativity and the message. Where schools submitted more than one poster, all of them were evaluated as a unit poster for the school.
Outeniqua Primary: first prize
No third price was allocated to a high school, since only three high schools participated. "It would not have been fair towards the primary schools," said Thabo Yiga, a candidate engineer at Electrotechnical Services, who coordinated the competition.
"We want to run this competition on a yearly basis and hopefully we will have more participating schools next year."
Yiga considers the competition as a huge success. "The teachers and learners took it seriously and from their posters you could see they were involved with the theme and thought it through. They worked very hard and produced stunning work."
With the current load shedding situation in the country it is important that youngsters take note of all the different energy generation technologies, said Yiga.
George Mayor Leon van Wyk (centre, left) hands over the winning cheque of R5 000 to Dr Nico Venter, principal of Outeniqua Primary. To the mayor’s left are Mphielo Ramotsai and Thabo Yiga of the electrotechnical directorate who drove the project. To Dr Venter’s right is the art teacher who assisted the learners in the project, Leoni Selzer. Around them are all the learners who are part of the group that won the competition.
Mayor Leon van Wyk told the learners that he is not only impressed by their artwork but by their thinking.
“We are all experiencing the inconvenience of load-shedding. We need to move into other forms of energy - wind, sun and other methods. This is the future of our world and our world is changing rapidly. It is awesome that you are part of that change. You are the generation that will use renewable energy and it is great that you had this opportunity to showcase your thoughts.”
The other schools that participated were Kretzenshoop Primary School, Hibernia Primary School, Dellville Park Primary School, McKinley Reid High School and Thembalethu Primary School.
Teachers and learners share their experiences:
Leoni Selzer, art teacher at Outeniqua Primary, said the process taught them how very important it is to save the world we live in. She said it was an incredibly great opportunity for the learners to research their own work and work on their art pieces.
Kyla Nel (12), a Grade 6 learner, said she wanted to make people aware that our earth is dying.
Linske Steenkamp (11), also a Grade 6 learner, said she drew an eye with the idea to change people’s view on how they saw the world; that we are to fix people’s eyes on the problem we need to solve.
An-Sophie Buchholz (12), a Grade 7 pupil, said her painting depicted the earth warming up to the extent that it threatens the survival of wildlife like the polar bear.
Mari Coetzee, art teacher at Outeniqua High School, said it was important to them to participate in the competition to get the younger generation thinking about preserving nature and thinking of alternative solutions to our energy needs.
Marlo Barnard (16), a Grade 11 learner, said it was great coming together as a team, while his Grade 11 teammate, Wessel Janse van Rensburg (17), said they are grateful for the opportunity and had loads of fun. They have used recycled paper from old exam books and magazines for the task.
Energy wise
George Municipality is part of the Energy Efficiency and Demand Side Management (EEDSM) programme funded by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. The municipality received grant funding of R4,5-million for the solar PV project at its main building parking area and part of the requirements is to spend 1% of that grant funding on creating an energy awareness campaign.
Sustainable energy is power that can be replenished within a human lifetime and so cause no long-term damage to the environment. Sustainable energy includes all renewable energy sources, such as hydroelectricity, biomass, geothermal, wind, wave, tidal and solar energy.
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