HE Major-General (Ret’d) Jioji Konusi Konrote’s address at the 2020 Constitution Day
To my Fellow Fijians,
Ni sa Bula Vinaka, Namaste, Ni Hao, Noa’ia ‘e Mauri and a very Happy Constitution Day to you all!
As you all know, we had to think a bit differently about our celebration
this year due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Because Fiji
is a COVID-19 contained country and our children can safely attend
school, we gave our students the chance to take part in a virtual
Constitution Day celebration — one that called on their creativity to
answer the following prompt:
“Given the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic, how can all of us
work together to uphold every Fijian’s right to health, as enshrined in
our Fijian Constitution?”
I want to thank all the students who helped us answer that prompt
through essays, videos, poems and short stories. All together, we saw
hundreds of submissions. As hard as it was, we have narrowed down all of
those incredible contributions to five national winners.
It is now my privilege to announce those students today: Our first
winner is Raijeli Sakaria, a Year Eight (8) student from the Bhawani
Dayal Memorial Primary School, who gave us all some great tips on how to
stay COVID-19-safe ––by including the installation of the careFIJI
digital contact tracing mobile application in your mobile phones.
The Year 11 students of Labasa College are among our winners as well ––
with a sketch that shows how all of us can work together to keep Fiji
COVID-19 contained.
We are also awarding a duo from the Rakiraki Methodist Mission School ––
Year Eight students Jone Raibevu and Aminiasi Dalituicama who
contributed a short and sweet spoken word performance.
And with a powerful essay, which we have since recorded for the nation
to hear, Year 10 student Oswell Morell wrote his winning piece on how
and why our constitutional right to health matters for every Fijian.
Last, but certainly not least, Year One student NES Natania Damudamu of
the Gospel School of the Deaf has been selected as our fifth national
winner for her video showing us, via sign language, how we can all help
realise every Fijian’s constitutional right to health by properly
washing our hands.
We are grateful to the parents and teachers around the country who helped us make this year’s Constitution Day a success.
I hope you had fun with your videos, and all learned something along the
way. Congratulations to our winners, I look forward to hosting you all
at the State House.
Happy Constitution Day!
May Almighty God Bless Our Beloved Nation. Thank you!