August 1, 2025 — Mireia Ariana Amba Cuenca, incoming Grade 12 student at Surrey School District’s IB program, has been honing her language skills by challenging herself in speech competitions in French and in English. She is also honing her singing and Filipino language skills by performing with a youth choir that sings Tagalog and other dialects spoken in the Philippines. She is known as someone who always tries very hard to succeed at things that she does.
Mireia also placed 3rd out of 45 students across BC in the 2025 Barry Sullivan Law Cup organized by the Canadian Bar Association BC. The judges in the final round were Premier David Eby, retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia Christopher Hinkson, and Kerry Simmons, KC, Executive Director of the Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch.”
Mireia is the 2025 BC/Yukon Region champion in her category (Grade 11 Early Immersion) in Concours d’art oratoire.
Mireia's dedication to and journey towards reaching her goal of public speaking excellence started in Grade 5, when she won the Surrey School District’s (SSD) Concours D’Art Oratoire in 2019 (Gr 5, French Immersion category). She also then received an award for participating in SSD’s Elementary Debate Challenge for highly able and gifted students. Since then, she kept on trying and competing in pursuit of her goals:
- July2021: https://philippinecanadiannews.com/canada/education-mireia-cuenca-turns-pandemics-isolation-into-something-positive/ - "13-year-old Mireia Cuenca bested other contestants in the interprovincial French public speaking competition held annually – Canada’s largest competition. She had won the same competition in 2019 as a Grade 5 student." (see: https://youtu.be/jNjHUsCQa00 )
- May2023: https://www.surreynowleader.com/community/earl-marriott-student-places-first-in-b-c-french-speaking-competition-3001463 - "Another Surrey student, Mireia Cuenca from Panorama Ridge Secondary, took silver in the French Immersion category for Grade 9 students."
- May2024: https://educationnewscanada.com/article/education/level/k12/3/1082635/record-tying-five-surrey-students-win-medals-at-bc-french-speaking-competition.html - "Mireia Cuenca of École Panorama Ridge Secondary took home silver in the Immersion 10 category."
- May2024: https://www.surreyschools.ca/_ci/p/169965 - "Mireia Cuenca of École Panorama Ridge Secondary took home silver in the Immersion 10 category."
- May2025: https://www.instagram.com/surrey_schools/p/DJuFzBoBnf2/ - "Semiahmoo Secondary's Mireia Cuenca received her fourth Concours medal, taking first in the Early Immersion 11 category!"
- May2025: https://www.surreyschools.ca/_ci/p/186615 - "Semiahmoo Secondary student and three-time Concours medallist Mireia Cuenca topped the podium once again, finishing first in the Early Immersion 11 category."
On top of this, Mireia is also honing her Tagalog skills and discovering Philippine culture by performing with Himig Kabataan Cultural Society, the first and only youth-led Filipino youth choir in Western Canada (https://www.himigkabataan.com/ ). She looks forward to joining HKCS in representing Canada in The World Peace Choral Festival in Vienna, Austria in 2026.
Through it all, Mireia says, “Always speak from the heart… I encourage all youths, especially Filipino-Canadians like me to put yourself out there to join these competitions or even just apply and see where that takes you. There are such wonderful opportunities opened up when you simply try. Trying is, in and of itself, success.”
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