A student of Phoebestat Royalty school, Osogbo, Adetunji Tosin, has emerged the winner of a Poster Design competition to end Female Genital Mutilation.
The competition organised by Value Reorientation for Community Enhancement, VARCE.
At the grand finale which held in Osogbo, the State of Osun capital, Miss Adetunji Tosin emerged first, whilst, Adedoyin Mercy and Adedunmoye Zainab took second and third respectively.
In his welcome address, the coordinator of VARCE, Ademola Adebisi stated that the reason for their NGO engaging in the campaign was due to the fact that in the south west of Nigeria, Osun was the state with the highest case of female genital mutilation and the Art competition was a type of a wake up call to the reality of FGM prevalent in the state.
He called on all the stakeholders to pull their resources together in ensuring that female genital mutilation was indeed a thing of the past.
In relation to the art competition, the VARCE coordinator hinted that over 350 entries were received from female secondary school students round the state out of which the 3 finalists were arrived at.
According to him, “all three finalists were then screened at the state ministry of health from which the second and first runner ups and the first position was arrived at.
The three finalist apart from going home with generous financial gifts also attracted projects to their schools.
Meanwhile, the first lady of the state of Osun, Alhaja Sherifat Aregbesola the founder of Sherifat Care Foundation (SCARF) through her representative Mr. Rotimi Ajayi pledged some financial rewards for the three finalists and inba separate interview revealed that another spelling bee competition would be organised for students in the state and the three finalist at the end female genital mutilation art competition were qualified automatically.
