Abuja — Master Dickson Simeon and Mamma Mohammed of the Titsall Global Schools have emerged winners of an international drawing competition organized by the European Union(EU) for West African schools.

The result of the primary school drawing competition on 'Gender Equality' proved that Simeon emerged the overall winner in the region while Mamma emerged first runner-up. The result also indicated that Simeon was one of the 14 world finalists in the competition and came third globally.

The international Drawing Competition was held between March and May this year by the European Commission. The participants were invited to create in drawing, the equality between men and women.

The competition was opened to all children between the ages of 8-10years who reside, hold the nationality and attend schools in one of these seven regions; Africa,Asia, Caribbean, European, Netherlands and others.

According to the EU Head of Delegation in Nigeria, Ambassador Robert Vander Meulen, more than 61 countries in the seven regions participated all over the world and more than 35, 000 children participated in the drawing competition.

He said the winning drawings would be published in a booklet, which would be distributed in the schools of the countries of the region concerned and in the European schools having participated in this competition.

Special guest at the occasion, Prof. Dora Akunyili said she was satisfied and commended Titsal Global Schools for producing the first and second winners in the region and third in the world. She said a one-page drawing can tell a story of two or three hours and even more, adding that the emancipation of women in Nigeria gave her the opportunity to serve the country.

The proprietress of the school, Dr.(Mrs) Sally Bolujoko described the honour as a direct result of what have been put in place in the school. She said the school was in forefront of producing the best in the world.

She said "we give God the glory for the award but I must say that we have worked hard to train and work on our pupils. We have had so many honours before now, but we did not just make noise on it." According to her, "for example in Abuja we have the best laboratory. We do not only impart knowledge we lay so much emphasis on character building. But the problem in the country now is that there is no longer model for the students to look up to," adding "We hardly can give a child a model. Because if you mention one politician today, you will read another thing in the paper about fraud and other things. Even in recruiting our teachers, we at times emphasis good character than intelligence."

She urged the government to encourage genuine proprietress by granting them soft loans to set up schools and buy relevant facilities.