Talented Nepolo wins Gold at Science Fair

namib times 21-07-15

 

Outspoken and extremely talented 19-year-old Nepolo Silvanus from Kuisebmond Secondary School has proven there is a fine line between science and fashion, when he won a gold medal at the Regional Science Fair last week Thursday, with a dress and handbag he made, using sweets wrappings.

The gold medal was awarded in the “environmental category” with a dress and a handbag made out of 3 000 sweets wrappings.

He goes through to the Science Fair Nationals which will take place in Windhoek during September this year.

Nepolo says his journey of participating in the Science Fair started last year when his friends qualified for the Nationals to Windhoek and he felt left out because he did not know anything about the Science Fair.

“When my friends got back and told me how ‘cool’ their experience was, I decided I was going to take part in this year’s Science Fair”.

By the time his friends returned from Windhoek, Nepolo had already made up his mind that he was going to enter into the environmental category and also about what project he was going to enter with.

“I started collecting sweets wrappings and recycled about 3 000 wrappings with the help of my fellow classmates”.

This year Nepolo approached his Biology teacher and told him that he wanted to participate in this year’s fair.

The Biology teacher informed him he was going to let him know as soon as he received a notification from the Regional office.

“When he got the notification, he informed us about the Science Fair and requested us to give in our topics.”

The talented designer admits that he felt his topic was not scientific enough, and he lacked confidence, and feared that his topic would not be chosen.

He adds that he was very surprised when his teacher told him that the project was a good idea. From thereon he believed he had chosen the right topic.

Nepolo was born with the amazing gift of fashion designing and sewing clothes – a talent which he discovered in 2012, after a friend of his cornered him into designing a dress for her.

Since then the young and outspoken Grade 12 learner has embraced this talent with much passion.