Keralas lucky mascot at Paralympics 2012

KOLLAM: At a time when the Indian athletes are gearing up to fare well at the London Olympics 2012, a Malayali school girl in London has already set her mark at the prestigious event.Shannon Belvin, whose parents hail from Kollam, has won ‘Get Set’, a competition held for school and college students across the UK to design a version of Olympics mascot Wenlock and Paralympics mascot Mandeville representing the cultural ethos of their region.Her customisation of Mandeville, the one-eyed mascot for the Paralympics, will be used as the official version representing the London region. Twelve designs were chosen from around 3,000 entries sent by school children from various regions in the United Kingdom. She was presented with a certificate, signed by chairman of the 2012 Olympics Sebastian Coe and a mounted copy of the design, days before she left to India.Far away from the limelight of the London media, the thirteen-year-old and her family, who were here for a one-month vacation, spoke to ‘Express’ at their house in Kakkottumoola."We had already planned for the vacation when the winners were announced. So the organisers arranged a special function during the school sports day to felicitate her,’’ said Shannon’s father Belvin Antony. Interestingly, Shannon was not aware of the importance of the competition and designed her version of the mascot as a class assignment. She came to know about it only when she was selected to the second stage of the competition which had 30 students."The experience of pitching my idea before a judging panel, which included Olympics gold medallist Jonathan Edwards and Paralympics wheelchair basketball player Ade Adepitan, will stay with me forever,’’ she said.The class VIII student of St Angela’s Ursuline School, Newham, says, "My design was based on my bus journey to school. I didn’t want the typical image of London with black cabs and red buses. Instead, I wanted Mandeville to represent the inner London.’’Shannon’s outfit for Mandeville is a patch work, which she says is a tribute to William Morris, the renowned artist from East London, and also symbolises Newham and its diverse cultural clothing. "The stitches represent how the Olympics would bind and bring together the various countries and cultures,’’ she said.The prize included an opportunity to work with a top London designer to develop the design. "It was a great experience to work with a professional designer. My opinion was asked on the materials to be used for making the model and we were told that the designs would be sent to China to make the official London 2012 pin badge,’’ she said.Belvin Antony and his wife Diana Belvin migrated to London in 1979. The couple has three children. Though a bit shy, Shannon and her siblings are quiet fluent in their mother tongue.