Winners of Zero Waste Competition 2021!

We have our winners from our Zero Waste competition! 

On 10th November, all the finalists gathered together for the final judging. Along with Teacher Sarith and Teacher Song, who helped to translate between the judges and the students, each finalist had a chance to pitch to the panel that their product deserves to win! It was heartwarming to see the local community wearing their PeopleStories uniform and talking to one another as they shared their creations. 
  
Our judges included Mr. Reangsey Tann, the Director of Ministry of Education (Bakong District) and Victoria, our founder, Matt LeNevez, our charity ambassador, Pavlos Spyroupoulos, our corporate supporter and CEO of Llyod’s Asia and Ghada Turner, another one of our corporate supporters and CEO of Pantry to Plate.   

During the event, our judges asked interesting questions to each of the finalists to get to know more about their creations and about them! 
  
Our founder, Victoria said, “Honestly, I was a bit nervous as we have never done any live webinar event like this before. As technology is always a challenge in rural Cambodia, we really didn't know how it was going to be. I am glad everyone had a fun time, and the event was a success." We sure think that the event is a success too! 
  
Let’s hear from the winners of the competition! One of them is Borey from the Individual Student Category who won first place with his upcycled luggage! When interviewed, Borey said, “I am very happy about winning the competition! I made a luggage because I thought it was very easy to make and I could use it too.”   ​

How did the judges feel about Borey’s createion? “The judges and I were blown away by Borey’s creativity for designing the travel luggage. He is so resourceful by upcycling used milk cans as wheels and water pipes as handles. We were also inspired to hear about his dream for being a footballer and how this travel luggage will bring him overseas,” Victoria gushed. We certainly think that he is one amazing boy with incredible aspirations too! 
  
Like Borey, another winner Solyn from the Student & Family Category, was ecstatic when she heard that she had won first place in the competition! She mused on how this competition has changed the way she now look at waste, “Before I think that waste can’t be reused but now, we can reuse and change it into other things that can use to decorate school or home.” We are truly happy to see that this competition has created a mindset shift in our participants.  ​

On why Solyn’s and her family’s creation were Champions, Victoria raved, “Solyn’s pitch performance was one of the best! We were all very impressed not only by the items she made but by her enormous courage to speak up. We certainly heard her voice about sustainability loud and clear.” Hearing that, we sure think that she deserved to win!  
  
Victoria summed up the thoughts of the judging panel, “The amount of creativity we saw is just tremendous. With such limited resources, the children have done so well by not only ideating but actually building items like travel luggage, flip flops...etc. I am delightfully surprised.”  
  
We have received many positive feedback right after the event. Roberta, one of our supporters thanked us for creating and hosting such a wonderful event and that she thinks, “All the finalists were just amazing!"  We will absolutely host similar event again and boost quality education with our children in rural Cambodia. ​

​When asked about how the prizes won will help our students, Victoria said, “During school closures due to COVID-19, 60% of our scholarship children have no digital asset to enable their online learning. Therefore, we have decided to provide 4 smart phones and 260kg of rice as their prizes. With these smart phones, we are hoping to open more online education opportunities for our children in rural Cambodia and bringing the wider world to them.”   
  
We are elated that Zero Waste has come to a fruitful end and we would like to celebrate our journey with this competition and the creations of all our participants whether they won or not. We are so proud of every single one of our participants and their creations. If you were not at the live event and would love to watch it, do not fret! We have the video up on our Facebook Channel, so do check it out and give us a follow! Also, if you’d like to support our children in Cambodia and provide them with more of such opportunities, visit our fundraising webpage. Your support is greatly appreciated! 
 
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Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum