Sari­ah Es­ther Ram­char­i­tar, an Up­per Six stu­dent of St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School (SAGHS), has won first place in the Be­yond the Blue Es­say Writ­ing Com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA).

She won with a to­tal of 467 points. The event was held at the IMA’s of­fices in Ch­aguara­mas.

Ariv Bha­ga­loo of Vish­nu Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege placed sec­ond with a to­tal of 431 points while Nao­mi Wick­ham, of St James Sec­ondary School came in third with 404 points.

The first place win­ner re­ceived an Ap­ple iPad, cour­tesy of Coastal Dy­nam­ics Lim­it­ed.

The sec­ond and third place win­ners re­ceived $1000 in units cour­tesy the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion (UTC) and two tick­ets to To­ba­go from Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL), re­spec­tive­ly.

The win­ners were an­nounced on Wednes­day at the prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny held at the au­di­to­ri­um of the IMA, Hill­top Lane, Ch­aguara­mas.

In con­grat­u­lat­ing the stu­dents, the in­sti­tute’s act­ing di­rec­tor Dr. Ra­han­na Ju­man called on the stu­dents to “in­flu­ence your par­ents, your schools and your com­mu­ni­ties to con­duct their lives in a man­ner that sup­ports a healthy and sus­tain­able ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment.”

The Es­say Writ­ing Com­pe­ti­tion came at the cul­mi­na­tion of the three-day Be­yond the Blue ma­rine en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­hi­bi­tion which was held at Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port- of- Spain in Sep­tem­ber.

Par­tic­i­pants were ex­posed to is­sues re­lat­ing to ocean health, cli­mate change, wet­lands and their role in the mit­i­ga­tion of the im­pacts of cli­mate change and more, in an in­ter­ac­tive and im­mer­sive en­vi­ron­ment us­ing Vir­tu­al Re­al­i­ty.

The com­pe­ti­tion was part of a wider pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign in the run up to the Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) Decade of Ocean Sci­ence for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment which be­gins in 2021.