By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

A group of high school students from the Liceo de Atenas in Alajuela Province won the international contest "Slame Tes Accents" which may be translated as "Declaim With Our Accents," reported the Ministry of Education on Monday.

An extract from the winning poem has the following phrases:

"Living together under one sky that unites us all. Our Francophonie is proud of a country that advocates peace. Our Francophone is PURA VIDA!"

This contest aims to assess the diversity of accents of the French language in the countries that are part of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie in America. Students from 14 countries competed, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Haiti, and Argentina.

The contest consisted of the young participants recording a video reciting a poem in the French language, about the Francophonie, and publishing it on their website, where digital voting was open for the public.

In the case of the Ticos, they presented a poem that characterized the national identity and exalted love and respect for Francophone accents, said the ministry.

The video was recorded at the beginning of the year before the school closure order was enacted due to the covid-19 health emergency.

The students of this school won the contest and obtained the most amount of votes from the public. French teachers from Costa Rica and other nationalities such as Argentina, Spain, France, Italy, Togo, India, Cameroon also voted, said the ministry.

Costa Ricans obtained a total of 1,974 votes, beating the runner up Canada by 121 more votes.

The French Ambassador Philippe Vinogradoff sent the Costa Rican students a congratulatory message much to their excitement.

This is the third edition of the contest organized by the Center of the Francophonie of the Americas in Quebec, Canada.

Currently, students continue to receive virtual classes during this pandemic.

The ministry announced the reopening of schools to in-person classes after the half-year vacation ends on July 10.

This is the second international award won by Costa Rican students during the pandemic.



In April, students from the Technology University of Costa Rica, TEC, won first place in the Midwest Student Design Competition, organized by the Central State Water Environment Association, CSWEA, in Wisconsin, United States.

The competition was scheduled to take place on April 6, at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison, Wisconsin. However, due to the pandemic caused by covid-19, presentations took place virtually through a 20-minute video, which was sent to the judges, the university said in its statement.

The nine winners are Antony Torres- Solano, Sharon Castillo- Rodríguez, María Jesús Peralta -Brenes, Deilin Ureña -Portuguez, Lidia Rodríguez -Vega and Nicolás Morales -Miranda, all students of the Environmental Engineering School.

Along with them, another group of Costa Rican students placed, Jafet Castro - Sandoval from the Construction Engineering School, Raúl Garita -Durán from Industrial Maintenance School, and Alejandro Morales - Quirós from Architecture and Urbanism School.

The contest required all participating teams to elaborate on a design of a sewage system and wastewater treatment plant to be applied in practice.

The students focused and developed their project for the La Fortuna district, San Carlos, in Alajuela Province. According to the TEC, students chose La Fortuna district because there is a need to improve sanitation, protect water resources and public services without affecting local tourism development and adapting to the increasing population density.

The youth students' proposal focused on nature-based solutions applied to technologies in Latin America and the economy as axes of sustainability and low energy demand, said the University.

"The youth-design of a wastewater treatment plant not only removes pollutants from wastewater also uses the treatment of sludge and generates biogas, for energy production," said TEC in its statement.

According to the students, "the goal of the design of the plant is to represent a tropical architecture that adapts to the climatic conditions of the area, with the use of large roofs and double heights, among other elements."

Thanks to this award, the nine winning students will participate in the same project, but in another competition organized by the Water Environment Federation, WEF, to be held in New Orleans, U.S.A. in October.

The project promotes learning in a real environment and emphasizes how to design centralized wastewater collection and treatment systems, the University said in its statement.

The Costa Rican students competed against students from five U.S. universities: the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, the University of St. Thomas, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Marquette University and Milwaukee School of Engineering.


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