Winner of Climate Zone SMS Competition from Lamen Bay Epi

Winner of Climate Zone SMS Competition from Lamen Bay Epi

Wednesday 22 October 2014 (Vanuatu) – The national winner of the Climate Zone SMS Competition has been announced by Digicel Vanuatu, in partnership with the Pacific Risk Resilience Programme (PRRP).

Noeline Noel from Lamen Bay Epi accumulated the most points in this year’s new SMS climate change competition, which supported last week’s annual Vanuatu Climate Zone Quiz television ‘game show’.

The Climate Zone Quiz television series is held annually for high school students by the Government of Vanuatu with support from SPC-GIZ Coping with Climate Change in the Pacific Islands Region (CCCPIR). This year’s Quiz was supported by the new SMS Competition coordinated by Digicel Vanuatu and PRRP.

Digicel Vanuatu Chief Executive Officer, Simon Fraser, says the Climate Zone SMS Competition was initiated this year so people from all six provinces could join the Climate Zone activity for the first time.

“The SMS quiz attracted more than 38,440 entries with winners from all over Vanuatu, so the quiz reached the breadth of the country bringing awareness in a fun way to the community in general,” Mr Fraser said.

“We gave away over 20 prizes during the week including free mobile phone credit valued up to $100USD and we congratulate Noeline on being our overall SMS Competition winner receiving $10,000 vatu.”

“More importantly we congratulate the Government of Vanuatu and partners for coordinating such an important initiative to raise awareness about climate change and disaster risk, and we are pleased to have been part of the programme.”

It was the third year the Government of Vanuatu and partners hosted the Climate Zone Quiz TV series, which involves more than 200 high-school students in Year 11 competing from all schools in all six provinces. The best competitors from each province competed at the televised national finals in Port Vila.

During Climate Zone Quiz week, 13-17 October 2014, Digicel sent four SMS questions daily with one winner drawn for each question (four winners per day, 20 winners for the week), with points accumulating so the week’s highest point scorer won the Grand Prize.

“Here at Digicel we believe it’s a priority to support such educational and community work, and help ensure the climate change message reaches the far reaching corners of Vanuatu,” said Mr Fraser.

Partnering Digicel to host the Climate Zone SMS Competition was the Pacific Risk Resilience Programme (PRRP) with its Programme Coordinator, Moortaza Jiwanji, so pleased with the success of the SMS quiz that work is already underway to hopefully make it an annual part of the Climate Zone Quiz Week.

“To have an educational programme about climate change and disaster related risks that reaches all six provinces of Vanuatu is unusual and incredibly important, as often it is not cost-effective to deliver messages to the more remote island communities,” says Mr Jiwanji.

“We hope to again support this outreach to the general public as it reflects the aims of the Pacific Risk Resilience Programme (PRRP) to use ‘risk governance’ to strengthen the resilience of Pacific island communities to disasters and climate change related risks.”

The Pacific Risk Resilience Programme (PRRP) is a risk governance programme in one of the most vulnerable regions to disasters and climate change in the world. The US$16.1 million Pacific Risk Resilience Programme (PRRP) is being delivered through a partnership between the Australian Government Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and international NGOs Live and Learn Environmental Education (LLEE) and the Mainstreaming of Rural Development Initiative (MORDI). The Programme is helping to build the national and regional risk governance enabling environment to improve the resilience of Pacific communities. It is being delivered in four Pacific island countries - Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga and Fiji; based on their high-risk profile and potential to demonstrate successful models for regional replication.

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