Some 1,600 students from 47 local schools participated in this year’s Macao-wide English Essay Competition (MEEC), which held its award ceremony last Saturday at the Macao Science Centre.
Prizes were given to 61 young writers in the competition, which is now in its third year and is designed to foster students’ understanding about the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
This year’s theme was “Nature and Me,” which required students to consider the relationship that humanity has with the natural environment. Participants ranged between the ages of 9 and 25 years and competed in one of four categories. The qualifying essays were assessed by a panel of judges over several rounds of blind judging.
The first prize winner of the college category, University of Saint Joseph’s Feng Du Wen, told TDM that he was “honoured” that his essay on economic growth and its impact on climate change was granted the award. “I want to spread awareness basically to every student…to take initiative and do something about climate change, which is very important for us.”
[See more: Macao’s annual student English essay contest spotlights ‘an inclusive world’]
Other first prize winners included highschooler Cheong Lok Ian, middle school student Ho Tak In and primary school student Lao Chi Tou.
In an interview with TDM, the chair of the MEEC Organising Committee, Sandy Leong, said that the organisers were impressed by the students’ choice of topics. Rather than focus exclusively on the generic topics of “nature, biodiversity [and] animals,” Leong pointed out that students also wrote “a lot of essays about economy, responsible consumption and food.”
As part of the event, students were also given the opportunity to deliver speeches and discuss their compositions.
Organised by the Macao Professional Speaking Association (MPSA), as well as two other local associations, the prize giving ceremony was attended by various guests, including the acting division chief of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Leong Cheng I, and the chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce, Keith Buckley.
