Tonga College won the $1,000 pa'anga first prize in a cheering competition at the finals of the 2015 Inter College Sports Competition today at Teufaiva Stadium.

The prizes were offered by the committee for International Women’s Day.

Tonga High School won the second prize of $800, and Queen Salote in third place won $600.

Seven schools participated and were encouraged to cheer about the International Women’s Day theme, ”Make it Happen, Women in Parliament” as well as “Ending Violence Against Women and Children”.

Tonga College highlighted ending violence against women and children in most of their cheers with expressions such as “There is no excuse for abuse” and “Say No to violence against women”.

Tonga High School highlighted the IWD theme with cheers such as “Women, leaders, better future” and “Girls, Boys, Genders – what’s the difference? I don’t know why”.

While, Queen Salote College stressed the empowerment of women with lyrics such as “Women are barrier-breakers–building our community–raising the family”

The Minister for Internal Affairs Hon Fe’ao Vakata presented the prizes to the winning schools.

"The IWD theme is a recurring one that will be used each year until the next parliamentary elections to encourage women’s participation in parliament. Because of this, activities such as the cheer competition are efforts by the IWD planning committee to continuously highlight the theme. Alongside is highlighting the ending of violence against women and children as a relative issue that calls for greater awareness among the general public,” he said.

The cheer competition a post activity of IWD 2015 was funded by the UN Women and Australian Government.