UQSUQTUUQ/GJOA HAVEN - A colourful poster with images of syringes along its four sides and the image of a soccer player standing beside a ball with the word "germs" earned an 11-year-old student top honours for the territory in a national contest promoting immunization.

Wilma Magaknak, a Grade 6 student at Quqshuun Ilihakvik in Gjoa Haven, designed a poster saying "Don't let germs score, get immunized!" She said she tried to make the poster bright.

"I was proud. I felt really happy about myself that I won," she said. "I like to play soccer. It's my best sport so I drew a Nunavut soccer jersey."

Magaknak was the territorial winner of the National Immunization Poster Contest, a contest organized every two years by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Coalition for Immunization Awareness and Promotion. Organizers chose a national winner and runner up as well as winner for each province and territory out of the 1,400 entries they received from across the country. Posters were judged on their creativity, colourfulness and its representation of child health and immunization.

Magaknak received a mounted copy of her poster, a calendar featuring all the winning entries, a certificate and will received an art kit as part of her prize.

Born and raised in Gjoa Haven, she likes to play soccer and draw and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

Her teacher Susie Hillier said before students started drawing a poster for the contest as a class assignment, she showed them winners from previous years and told the students the importance of filling the page and making the drawing attractive.

She added they are "very proud" Magaknak won and a calendar featuring the winning posters is hanging in the school.

"Often, these posters come and it's from people you don't know. For myself and the students, we can say 'Yeah, we know the person that drew that.' We're proud that we can claim that," said Hillier. "We know she's going to win lots more in the future because she's a very good student and she works very hard all the time."

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