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Juliet Neal, Dir., Planning and Project Development - Ministry of Tourism
"What we wanted to do is we want to promote history and culture among the young people, particularly students in schools. We know that we study history and social studies at that level, but we really wanted to get into the history of Belize City and how Belize City helped in terms of Belize's development. It really helps the kids have a greater appreciation for where they live and what around them. We hope that it becomes an annual event that is carried on similar to the spelling B."

Albert Avila, Comm. Liaison Officer - Ministry of Tourism
"We refer to it as a pilot project so we are only doing Belize City and we believe that just having this live and promoting it, going into next year, we'll have more school that would be more interested in it and possibly maybe even taking it nationally."

Hazey Perez, St. Mary's Anglican Primary School
"I studies very hard. I had the support from my parents, from my teachers, from the principal and friends and I thank God for having me here with this competition to help me."

Reporter
"It was a very close competition. When did you know that you had won?"

Hazey Perez, St. Mary's Anglican Primary School
"The last round. I feel happy and excited."

Reporter
"We know how tough it was that you came up second, talk to us about how much preparation it took you to get to this point?"

Jeyden August, Holy Redeemer Primary School
"I study hard. I like to thank my mom and my teacher."

Keylen Moralez, United Presbyterian Primary School
"I studied hard."

Reporter
"Who helped you prepare?"

Keylen Moralez, United Presbyterian Primary School
"My teacher and my sister."

Albert Avila, Comm. Liaison Officer - Ministry of Tourism
"The first place school was slightly behind, by four hundred points or two hundred points or something like that. And in the last round, she got a triple point, a hundred point that was worth three hundred, and that put her up just enough to separate her from Holy Redeemer's Jayden August. And although he got his question correct, it was not enough."

The Competition is part of the Belize City House of Culture and Downtown Rejuvenation Project. Community liaison officer for the project, Albert Avila told us how awareness-raising initiatives like today's event will benefit the project.

Albert Avila, Comm. Liaison Officer - Ministry of Tourism
"The main vision of the Downtown Rejuvenation Project is to improve on our socio economic integration of downtown Belize City and what that means is to bring the community and the business and visitors together into down town. Because the key initiative that will cause, that I refer to as the catalyst to start rejuvenation of down town is what we called the eco museum and the whole of down town will be created into an eco-museum and we are going to invite people to come down there, the tourists, our visitors, the community and the key thing about it is that the sites and the people are going to make it possible are the community - the Southside people and the people of Belize City. They are going to come into down town and they are going to do the display. They are going to tell the stories, they are going to be the artist, the artisans. In order for us to do that we need to create awareness of the community. We have to show them why it's important for them to preserve and protect our history and our culture."

For the social studies quiz, the winner got to take home 1 Laptop Computer and printer, along with a Phablet and a thousand dollar gift certificate. The second place finisher got the same, but with a four hundred dollar gift certificate. And the top three Primary Schools will receive 1 Desktop Computer with Monitor, sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation.