Umm-Al-Qura School takes two Riffa Views Eden Challenge Awards

Um Al Qoora Primary Intermediate Girls School is one of the stars of Riffa Views 2009 Eden Challenge, having been awarded first place in Category B (Primary, 10-12 years) and a highly commended runners-up spot in Category C (Intermediate, 13-15 years) of the environmental schools competition organized by Riffa Views Signature Estates.

Currently with just over 500 students, the school was founded in 1990 to cater to both the Primary and Intermediate levels. Based on its entry in last year’s Eden Challenge and the resultant ‘highly commended’ category award, the school was keen to enter Eden Challenge 2009 and go one step better this year. Well, that’s exactly what it managed to do – taking its category win by beating the 16 other schools in Category B, all submitting water mosaic artwork projects designed to inform and remind viewers of the prestigious role played by water throughout history.

As with many of the schools, Um Al Qoora relied on the arts class to provide the students to take on the Eden Challenge. The basic design for the school’s mosaic was chosen from drawings produced by all of the art class students, inspired by the overall ‘water’ theme; the final choice being a combination of two drawings – one based around the famous and historic ‘Delmon Stamp’ and the other depicting a ‘drop of water’.

The judges enjoyed the team’s creative and imaginative approach – Chris Beardshaw, chairman of the judging panel, commenting “The symbolism of this mosaic is clear and relates very well to the themes of the challenge. The use of historic symbols with water, vegetation and the profile of the child are strong.”

The school’s teachers used the competition to instruct the students about the history of mosaics and their different designs and structures; this instruction was obviously taken well to heart by the project team as they created a winning entry that will be built up and displayed as part of the Riffa Views Eden Challenge stand at the 2009 Riffa Views Bahrain International Garden Show (“RVBIGS 2009”).

The judging panel was obviously very impressed by the finished entry, with Beardshaw commenting further, “The quality of production is high and the choice of materials good for this initial stage. The final mosaic will clearly form a key element of the Riffa Views Eden Challenge garden and we look forward to seeing the finished sculptural piece at RVBIGS 2009.”

Whilst participating in the Eden Challenge was exciting for all the students, their parents and the teachers, winning the two awards made it very special for everyone connected with the school. Aziza Al.Hussaini Nassar, the school’s Art Teacher, said “The Principal, the teachers, the students, everyone was so happy when we heard that we had won the awards …… we had many calls that day to congratulate us”. Infact, the Principal was so proud and excited that she apparently interrupted classes and exams to tell the whole school of the good news!

The school is very thankful to Riffa Views Signature Estates for organizing the Eden Challenge competition; it believes that the Eden Challenge has changed a lot of schools’ approaches towards environmental issues and it is certainly going to concentrate on educating the Um Al Qoora students more about the environment in the future.

Not only is the school intending to improve the students understanding and enjoyment of the environment inside the class-room, it is keen to provide an enjoyable environmental atmosphere outside the class-room too – plans are already afoot to spend the cash prize from the Eden Challenge win on providing ornamental water fountains around the school and developing the school’s garden.

And who knows, that ‘investment’ could turn out to be even bigger if the school goes on to become the Overall 2009 Eden Challenge Winner and pick up the overall winner’s prize of BD3,000. Chris Beardshaw will select the top school from the four category winners during RVBIGS 2009 in April – and as Aziza Al.Hussaini Nassar puts it, “Winning two awards is fantastic for the school, but we wish we can be the overall winner too!”

Schools delighted with Eden Challenge win

There are four very happy schools in Bahrain this week, safe in the knowledge that they are category winners in this year’s Riffa Views Eden Challenge schools competition. The results of the environmental challenge, open to all schools, were announced last week and the four winning schools contacted directly by the Eden Challenge organizing team with the good news.

Amena Bint Wahab Girls School have two reasons to be delighted – not only did they win Category A, they were also awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in Category B. Category A covered the Junior Primary age group for children between 6 – 9 years and required project entries to produce a water based sculpture.

Safeya Kamal, Administrative Supervisor at Amena Bint Wahab said, “We were delighted to hear this news, the girls and teachers worked so hard for it. When we saw the entries last year, we thought that we could enter again and win this year. We would like to thank Riffa Views for organizing such an interactive competition and giving us the chance to win. Last year when Richard Browning visited our school for tree planting, we thought it was a great and kind gesture…I am happy to say that the tree is coming along very nicely.”

The other school to take two awards was the Um Al Qoora Primary Intermediate Girls School– they were awarded the top spot in Category B, as well as being ‘Highly Commended’ in Category C. Category B required Primary schools, with children between 10 – 12 years, to produce a mosaic artwork image, highlighting the prestigious role played by ‘water’ across the course of history.

Reem Abdulaziz Al Arrayedh, Um Al Qoora’s Art Teacher was very happy to comment on their awards – “Obviously we are very glad that we participated in the Eden Challenge – it was really great news that not only did we win one category, we got the highly commended in another category as well. When we were told about us winning, the principal, the teachers and the entire school was happy – we received so many calls to congratulate us. We are looking forward to Riffa Views visiting our school so that we can show more of our work.”

Al Qayrawan School took the top prize in Category C, which covered the 13-15 years age group at Intermediate schools. Entries in this category had to design a Water Mobile to demonstrate the way in which the power of water can be harnessed to perform technical tasks.

Al Qayrawan’s Principal Mrs. Raja Al Zayani was delighted with the result, “We are very happy to hear that we won the prize as the school and children enjoyed working for the competition, it gave a great atmosphere to the school; it was quite hard for us in the beginning, but the whole experience was just great. To be honest, I didn’t expect that we were going to win – it was a surprise for all of us because all the other entries were so amazing; when we saw last year’s entries in the Eden Challenge calendar, we decided that we needed to take part this year and try to make a difference. We love gardens and take good care of ours; this is the first time that we have received a cash prize for the school and its so overwhelming because we already had plans to redesign the school’s garden – I had a whole plan in mind and just needed the funding, so this is the best gift from Riffa Views to make our school’s dream come true.”

Rounding off the honour roll was the Khawla Secondary Girls School, who were the winners in Category D for Secondary School students between 16 – 18 years; project entries in this category required the teams to design a Water Conscious Garden, where the garden design had to interact with the environment and include innovative water saving devices.

Seham Al Kooheji, Community Service Specialist at Khawla, expressed the excitement of the school, “When we first heard the news, I called everyone to the principal’s office and shared it with them, they were extremely happy …many schools called to congratulate us. This year’s competition was really hard and required a lot of information – it was a huge challenge to come up with a water conscious garden, so the girls researched through the internet and our library; then one of the girls came up with the idea of using the Riffa Views Eden Challenge logo as a base for the entry and all the hard work came together in the garden that we submitted. The girls are really happy and would like to thank Riffa Views for giving us this chance.”

All the schools are delighted to have come out on top of the competition so far, but they are all hoping to go one better and be judged the Overall 2009 Eden Challenge Winner when Chris Beardshaw, Riffa Views’ Garden & Landscapes Ambassador and Chairman of the judging panel, makes his final selection from the four proud category winners during the Riffa Views Bahrain International Garden Show (“RVBIGS”) in April.

Richard Browning, CEO of Eden Challenge organizers, Riffa Views Signature Estates, is under no illusion as to how hard that final selection will be, “The judges had a very hard time selecting the four category winners from the many wonderful entries the schools came up with, I have no doubt that Chris will find it even more difficult to select the overall winner as all four schools are worthy of the title. I am looking forward to seeing the winning entries displayed on the Eden Challenge stand at RVBIGS and congratulating them all on their great achievement; it has truly been a pleasure to support the schools once again this year with the Eden Challenge.”

Eden Challenge Winners Announced

After three months of hard work by schools all across Bahrain, the four age group category winners of Eden Challenge 2009, the schools competition established by Riffa Views Signature Estates to inspire the Kingdom’s school students to consider the importance of the environment, have been selected.

Project entries, required to highlight the various ways that innovative techniques for the conservation and management of water in the twenty-first century interact with and support everyday surroundings, closed last week – giving the judging panel of four, led by Riffa Views’ Garden & Landscapes Ambassador, Chris Beardshaw, a first look at the wide range of high quality, imaginative and well thought out projects across the four age group categories.

Richard Browning, CEO of Riffa Views, on hand to view the entries and the judging process, was delighted by the outcome of the competition, commenting “The number of schools that took part this year and the increased effort shown by the quality of the entries demonstrates that the environmental challenge is one that the students are keen to take on. It proves that investment by corporate bodies in our children will provide sustainable results and so protect their future. We look forward to exhibiting their creative solutions to the Eden challenge at the Riffa Views Bahrain International Garden Show.”

Beardshaw, along with fellow judges – Shaikha Muneera bint Ahmed Al-Khalifa, Matthew Rushton and Dr Zuhair Al Dallal, had the difficult but enjoyable task of reviewing the 60 entries from 44 schools that had been delivered to the Riffa Views International School, some by the project teams’ teachers, others by the students themselves decked out in the distinctive ‘Eden Challenge’ T Shirts.

Each of the four age group categories – Category A: 6-9 years, Category B: 10-12-years, Category C: 13-15-years and Category D: 16 to 18 years – required entries to be focused on different aspects of the water based theme and were judged on set criteria covering overall design / presentation, research, content, construction and ‘environmental friendliness’. The judges, with the experience of judging Eden Challenge 2008 already behind them, were unanimous in the view that the overall standard of the competition entries was much higher this year – it was quite clear to all of them that each of the schools had put considerable effort and depth into the development and design of their projects, documenting and reporting everything in great detail for them to follow.

Chris Beardshaw summed up the judges’ feelings – “The detail that we were expecting for 2009 was far greater than 2008; we were unsure quite how the school’s would respond, however we were thrilled and delighted at the level of imagination and detail provided, especially in the younger categories. This response is a clear indication of the enthusiasm and commitment of both schools and pupils to explore and express their understanding of the complex environment issues in water as a resource and in the conservation of Bahrain”.

Richard Browning was delighted with the way the competition had built on the successes of Eden Challenge 2008 and the high standard of this year’s entries. He congratulated all the schools who had entered, commenting that in many ways they were all winners – as one of the judges, Matthew Rushton, put it, “The most positive and encouraging thing for me was the enjoyment you could see on the kids faces from the photographs that were submitted with their entries showing them hard at work, which is one of the main reasons for holding the Eden Challenge.”

The challenge for the expert judging panel was to review the 60 entries – 19 Category A, 17 Category B, 15 Category C and 9 Category D – and to decide on a winning school and ‘two highly commended’ schools for each category; due to the quality of the project submissions, this was not an easy process and took a great deal of discussion between the judges before they finally decided on the winning schools as follows:

Category A Winner Amena Bint Wahab Primary Girls School Highly Commended Palms Primary School Arabian Gulf Pearl School

Category B Winner Um Al Qoora Primary Intermediate Girls School Highly Commended Amena Bint Wahab Primary Girls School Al Quds Primary Girls School

Category C Winner Al Qayrawan Intermediate Girls School Highly Commended Arabian Gulf Pearl School Um Al Qoora Primary Intermediate Girls School

Category D Winner Khawla Secondary Girls School Highly Commended Hoora Commercial Secondary Girls School The Indian School – Isa Town Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al-Khalifa Secondary Boys’ School

Three schools are worthy of special mention – the Amena Bint Wahab Primary Girls School and the Um Al Qoora Primary Intermediate Girls School, who both ‘fielded’ a category winner and a ‘highly commended’ project – the Um Al Qoora School going one step better than their ‘highly commended’ result last year; and, in some ways perhaps the unluckiest school, the Arabian Gulf Pearl School who provided two ‘highly commended’ project entries but couldn’t quite make it into any of the top spots this year to follow on from their category win in Eden Challenge 2008.

The four category winners will receive cash awards of BD1,000 each to spend on enhancing their environmental education resources and will have their entries built up and displayed on the Eden Challenge stand at RVBIGS – Chris Beardshaw spent some ‘post judging’ time discussing the practical aspects of this display building process with the Riffa Views Eden Challenge team before flying back to the UK. Each of the schools who entered will receive a commemorative Eden Challenge plaque and have a tree planted in their name in one of Bahrain’s public parks.

The Overall Eden Challenge Winner, who will receive the overall Eden Challenge trophy and a further cash award of BD3,000, will then be selected during RVBIGS from the four category winners – from the list above, one thing is for sure, the title of Overall Eden Challenge Winner will remain in female hands, with one of this year’s winning girls schools looking forward to taking over from last year’s overall winners, The Umm Salama Intermediate Girls School.

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