If you just happened to have passed this morning on North Front Street by Holy Redeemer Primary School and wondered what was all the commotion well the loud cheering and clapping came from upstairs of the Holy Redeemer Parish Hall where students from Gwen Lizarraga High School were celebrating a big victory. Today one of their own seventeen year old Josephine Baird earned the position of first place in the Belize District Human Rights Quiz-a-thon after beating her peers from six secondary schools.

The Human Rights Quiz Competition is a collaborative effort between a number of agencies including WIN Belize, UNICEF, OXSAM, and NCFC to advance the understanding of human rights among the country’s young population…..and judging from the level of competition displayed in today’s the students have not only been studying but learning quite a lot. Shortly after the winner was announced 7News caught up with Josephine Baird and Paulette Wade one of the organizers from today’s event.

Paulette Wade, NCFC
“We believe that one of the first steps is for young people to understand their rights, know when their rights are being violated and know when they are violating other people’s rights. But this competition doesn’t only look at rights. It also looks at what responsibility comes along with the right.”

Josephine Baird, Winner (Gwen Liz)
“We worked day and night, during school hours, we took time out of our classes to prepare for this human rights competition because we knew that we wanted our school to be on top.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
Ws it challenging?

Josephine Baird,
“It was very challenging because we had to study all different types of human rights situations and compliances.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
So at what point in the competition did you begin to feel more relaxed and that probably you have this thing in the bag?

Josephine Baird,
“It was like in the last round when they were eliminating the other students and when I looked to my right I didn’t see anyone in the chair and when I looked to my left I didn’t see anyone in the chair also. So I felt that I had this thing and I came out on top.”

Paulette Wade,
“We give them about three hundred questions to answer to study and we gave them different booklets based on each right and different conventions and at the end of the third round we couldn’t eliminate anyone; the scores were all tied. So we had to go to our reserved list and try to pull questions that were more difficult and much more challenging. So I think that these students really prepared for this quiz. I was very surprised.”

Josephine Baird not only took home a plaque sponsored by NCFC but a two hundred dollar gift certificate of school supplies from Simon Quan and a gift package. Tracy Lewis and Zane Grey both from Wesley College captured second and third places respectively. Following today’s Belize District Human Rights quiz-a-thon, tomorrow the high school students from the Cayo District will compete. This will be followed by similar quiz-a-thons held for the Corozal, Orange Walk, Stann Creek and Toledo Districts. The national champ of the Human Rights Competition will be chosen on April twenty eight when the final takes place inside the Bliss Center in Belize City.