Winners of Abuja poetry blast competition emerge
Sharon Ephraim, Adebayo Danielle of Light of Day School, Kubwa and Kalu Chukwemeka Divine of Rayon Pris Success Academy, Dawaki have emerged winners of the Abuja 2018 Poetry Blast Competition maiden edition. The Director of Obagoo Kidzart, organizers of the competition, Assumpta Kelvin said over 50 schools in Abuja participated in the competition. "The competition was […]
Sharon Ephraim, Adebayo Danielle of Light of Day School, Kubwa and Kalu Chukwemeka Divine of Rayon Pris Success Academy, Dawaki have emerged winners of the Abuja 2018 Poetry Blast Competition maiden edition.
The Director of Obagoo Kidzart, organizers of the competition, Assumpta Kelvin said over 50 schools in Abuja participated in the competition.
"The competition was keenly contested as there were many wonderful and incisive entries from children in different schools across the FCT. More that 1000 poems were written in the first stage, did I say 1000, more than 5000 poems from children; so you know what it means to make more than 5000 children write poems."
"Some of the key criteria used included the writer’s ability to humanize nature, the extent to which the work relates and affects the human person; the beauty, flow and rhythm of language; poetic license and tone for poetry entrants; structure and organization of work; format and style and spelling and appropriate use of punctuation marks. It is important to note that in the poetry blast competition, every participant is a winner."
"It will come up on yearly basis and it will be area council by area council; this is the first phase at Bwari area council from where we will head to AMAC and move from other area councils in Abuja from where we intend to expand to every state in the country, so we need sponsorship", she said
Assumpta also thanked the sponsor of the competition, Obagoo Global Concept for helping make the maiden edition a reality. She also called on other corporate organizations in Nigeria to support the competition.
“We sincerely hope for more participation and support in the coming editions of the competition. We look forward to more robust involvement by schools and corporate institutions in the coming edition as well as greater participation of pupils and students from public and private schools across FCT”, she added.
The Chairperson of the occasion Hajiya Nasir Binta represented by Mr.Nnok Yohanna described the competition as a platform to groom the younger generation in creative writing and awaken the reading culture in schools.
"I am so excited about it, I am so passionate about it because it has to do with grooming the younger ones in creative writings.we are in the era of catching them young and I think it is really timely in order to make the students to cultivate the habit of reading and writing.
"Parents should encourage their children to read by providing them with reading materials, creating time for them and buy what they need. Likewise school should expose students to reading culture, stock the library with books, newspapers, journals and things like that as It will really help the creativity of the students and I think global literary experts started like this and they are where they are because they were persistent and consistent", he said.