Results Of Pancyprian Special School Competition Entitled Helping Children Hands Up For All

The Yianis Christodoulou Foundation (YCF) would like to congratulate the teachers and the students of the Public Special Schools that participated in the Pancyprian Special School Competition entitled ‘HELPING CHILDREN – HANDS UP FOR ALL’. Through the competition the YCF wanted to provide the opportunity to students with various disabilities or needs attending special schools to build on their creativity, interests and talents for the creation of various art or music related work that will convey the common values of equality, love, respect, friendship, inclusion, access etc.

All special schools have shown a great interest for participation and have worked really hard in order to send a wide range of entries: amazing songs and videos that show the work of the teachers and students, colourful drawings, 3D art work and many more. The assessment procedure was hard and the committee was faced with various challenges.

Based on the regulations of the ‘HANDS UP FOR ALL’ Competition, 3 main prizes of €17.000 was planned to be given to 3 winning schools: 1st prize of €10.000, 2nd prize of €5.000 and 3rd prize of €2.000. After careful consideration of all entries, and while acknowledging the effort and time that the teachers and the students have devoted, the YCF has decided that the 3rd prize of €2.000, will be awarded equally to the rest of the special schools. Therefore, the total amount to be given for the competition will be €27.000 (1st prize €10.000, 2nd prize €5.000 and 3rd prize €2.000 to the rest of the special schools that participated in the competition – 6 schools in total).

The winning schools that will receive the first two prizes are the following:

The 1st prize of €10.000 is awarded to ‘Eidiko Sholio Agios Spyridonas (Ειδικό Σχολείο Αγίου Σπυρίδωνα - Λάρνακα’ (Larnaca) for the video, see opposite top – song – lyrics ‘I create, I share, I love, That’s who I am’ (Δημιουργώ, Μοιράζομαι, Αγαπώ. Αυτό είμαι εγώ!). The main singers are Nefeli Antoniou, a talented young girl who finds it very very hard to speak but sings beautifully, Giorgos Anastasiou and Andry Kakoushi. The song was composed by Elena Eleftheriadou and the lyrics were written Andry Charalambous in cooperation with the students.

The 2nd prize of €5.000 is awarded to Eidiko Sholio Apostolos Varnavas (Ειδικό Σχολείο Αποστόλου Βαρνάβα) for the 3D art work, see opposite titled: ‘From cooperation to love, from love to support and back to raising our hands up’ (Από την συνεργασία στην αγάπη, από την αγάπη στην αλληλεγγύη και ξανά όλοι τα χέρα ψηλά). The video can be found here:

2nd Place Video

The 3rd prize of €2.000 is awarded equally to each of the 6 special schools that participated in the competition, so that each school will receive the above amount.

It is noted that all the above prizes will be utilized, as per the regulations of the competition, for the purchase of essential equipment, the improvement of the infrastructure or the upgrade of the facilities of the above schools, based on their needs and the approval of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth.

The award ceremony of the competition will be organized after the beginning of the new academic year 2020-21 provided that this will be allowed by the guidelines of the Ministry of Health related to the COVID-19 pandemic.