Young Yemeni students celebrate their global citizenship

In a welcoming ceremony earlier this month, the British Council announced five student winners of its I’m a global citizen competition. The competition was conducted in British Council Connecting Classrooms schools in the Middle East countries of the GCC, Yemen and Iraq for students aged between 11-14 years to think about their role in today’s internationally-connected world. First prize was awarded to the Zainab School for girls in the Republic of Yemen competition.  The school submitted five outstanding student projects prepared by Angham Al Anasi, Rhan Al Ameri, Tasneem Al Waeli, Heba Dhamrin and Hanan Al Wesabi. The projects’ themes were about terror, poverty, HIV, smoking and child labor. These projects were supervised by senior teacher Mr. Adel Al Ferasi.  The students’ projects creatively demonstrated what it means to be a global citizen.

Judges from the Ministry of Education and the British Council assessed the entries on the basis of creativity, originality, clarity and aiding in understanding about the concept of being a global citizen. Entries took the form of posters, songs & poems, visual presentations, newspaper and magazine article.

Rajaa Bazara, British Council Project Manager for Connecting Classrooms in Yemen said: ‘I was amazed at the number of entries which I received from the schools and also amazed at how creative they are in producing such wonderful materials. I think this competition added more insight to the concept of global citizenship in the schools.”

“I congratulate Zainab School for getting the first prize and for having the opportunity to travel to the UK to spend some time with their partner school and develop better understanding of each others cultures”.

The winning students and their teacher, taking the top prize among eight participating Middle-East countries, will now have the opportunity to travel to the UK in March to attend a workshop in London, followed by up to four days living and studying with students at their UK partner schools.

This competition is just one way in which the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms program is working to improve trust and understanding between students living in different societies and help young people develop the skills and cultural understanding needed to live and work in a global society.

The I’m a Global Citizen competition took place during the autumn term and closed on 31 December 2009.  Three iPod shuffles were awarded for runner-up students Abdulrahman Yousef from Abdulnaser School, Nada Assag from Al Khansa’a School and ِAilol Al-Rukhami from Raba’a Al Adawia School.

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