Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company has marked the 2023 Children’s Day with quiz competition for government secondary schools in Rivers State.
The competition tagged; Catch Them Young, engaged five public secondary schools namely, Government Secondary School, Borokiri; Community Secondary School Rumuopara; Community Comprehensive Secondary School Rumuokwurushi; Community Secondary School, Okoro-nu-odo and Model Secondary School, G.RA.
Community Secondary School, Rumuopara, emerged the overall winner of the 2023 PHED quiz competition, while Government Secondary School, Borokiri and Community Secondary School, Okoro-nu-odo emerged first and second runner up.
Speaking, the Managing Director of PHED, Dr Benson Uwheru, said the competition was a way of giving back to the society as part of its corporate social responsibility.
Uwheru represented by the Chief People’s Officer, Micah Ledee, said PHED has been repositioned as a people-oriented organization, where electricity customers are treated as kings.
He said, “This competition is a way of giving back to the society and because of the policy of diversity, equity and inclusion that we have, we decide to make the public know that PHED has a new face.
“Secondly, PHED has always been known in the bad light, but we are letting the public know that PHED of today is not like the PHED they used to know. Today we are reaching out to the least persons in the society and supporting every business including schools and that’s why we picked public secondary schools for this competition.”
Also speaking, the Head, Corporate Communications, PHED, Olubukola Ilevbare urged other organisations to emulate the Port Harcourt disco in promoting and supporting public schools.
“We deliberately went to public schools because we know there are intelligent kids in those schools too. The process was a thorough process and I hope that the government will continue to pay more attention to our public schools because truly there are a lot of hidden talents there.
“I think we need to focus more on our public schools. They have been overlooked and I believe that if other organisations focus on these public schools like we have just done, the result will be impressive because these children are our future leaders. I hope other organisations will come on board and do more for public schools.”
Speaking on behalf of the students, the Senior Prefect of Community Secondary School, Rumuopara, Saviour Godswill, who emerged the overall winner of the 2023 PHED quiz competition, commended the Disco for the event.
According to him, there are also intelligent students in public and assured that he will use the Samsung galaxy tablet he won at the competition to improve on his learning abilities.
“I give God all the glory for making this possible and I want to say thank you to PHED for making this possible. I want to advice other people to always put God first in all they do and also want to advice my fellow to take their study seriously. We should judge a book by the cover, there are intelligent students’ public schools too.”
