St. Louis Senior High School wins award

Accra, Dec. 9, GNA - St Louis Senior High School on Thursday made its Ashanti Region proud when the school won the 2010 Project Citizen Ghana National Showcase award in Accra. Project Citizen is a portfolio-based interdisciplinary civic education programme for the youth that promotes qualitative participation in local and national government. It was designed to assist the youth to learn how to monitor and influence public policy and develop support for democratic values and principles, in the process. The programme was under the theme: "Toward Effective Youth Participation in Ghana's Democracy".

The Kumasi-based girls' school beat other two finalists with 82.3 points and took home a plague, a desktop computer and assorted items from the sponsors. Other finalists, St Francis Xavier Junior Seminary, Upper West Region, had 75.7 points and received a 21-inch television set and a DVD Player and assorted items while the Tamale Senior High School had 70.7 and took home a 21-inch television and assorted goods.

The Project Citizen Ghana is administered by the National Commission for Civic Education, the Ghana Education Service and Civitas in cooperation with the Center for Civic Education with financial support from Hanns Seidel Foundation, Promasido Ghana Limited, producers of the Cowbell range of products.

St Louis Senior High School researched on the topic "Curbing Road Accident - A Shared and Collective Responsibility" and argued that the road safety should be included in schools' curriculum. St Francis Xavier Junior Seminary worked on the "Excessive Intake of Alcohol in the Kpaduri Community in Wa" and said it was worried that a research by a non-governmental organisation, the Blue Cross, revealed that the Upper West Region was leading in alcoholism. The school called for an "Alcohol Taskforce" to educate the people especially the women whom they alleged were topping in alcoholism as shown in the research.

Tamale Senior High School researched on the "Menace of Road Crushes in the Tamale Metropolis" and called on politicians, religious leaders, chiefs and opinion leaders to champion the campaign to reduce it.

Dr John S. Annan, the Deputy Minister of Education, commended the organisers for focusing on critical area of the country's democracy and urged the youth to embrace the project. Dr Annan appealed to students to learn how to develop public policy to solve problems and also strive to remove negative elements that would retard progress.

"Development is the collective responsibility of each other and it is therefore important to see the exercise as development process." "Let's sow the seed of a tree whose shades we want to enjoy," he said. Ms Clara Bonsu, a pioneer student of the Project Citizen Ghana, said the pilot project started in March 2006, was to prepare the youth to be responsible, informed and appreciate multi-party democracy. She said towing party lines was polarising the country and stressed the need to educate the public on the need to support the ruling government after every election to carry out its agenda. Mr Larry Bimi, Chairman of the National Commission for Civic Education, reiterated the need to assist the youth to take up democratic governance qualitatively. He cited the on-going political disturbances in Cote d'Ivoire and said, "In Ghana we are said to be democratic because we have been voting and changing governments here and there." "We have achieved that success mostly because the populace was educated to accept only election results announced officially by the Electoral Commission," he said. Mr Christian Hegemer, the Director of the Institute of International Contact and Cooperation, Hanns Seidel Foundation, said to be a good citizen one must think of what one could do for one's country and not vice versa. Mr Hegemer said Ghana was gifted because "everybody is an orator" and urged the students to continue to be leaders.