Earlier today Friday 29 June 2018, six students from various schools were awarded at the National Council for Arts and Culture Conference Hall. This was for their winning entries into the 2018 Inter-Senior Secondary School Essay Competition. This is part of efforts to improve the education system in the Gambia. It was a colorful ceremony and was attended by officials from the Writers’ Association of the Gambia.
Background
On Monday, 23rd April 2018 UNESCO NATCOM in collaboration with the Writers’ Association of the Gambia celebrated International Book and Copyright Day at the Alliance Franco Gambian on the theme The Gambian Writer and the Promotion of Human Rights. UNESCO funded the celebration which brought together hundreds of students from dozens of schools in the Gambia. On that occasion, scholars from the Writers’ Association of the Gambia presented papers on the impact of literature in the national development with particular emphasis on the Gambian writer and the promotion of Human Rights.
During the celebrations, a UNESCO representative announced that they will fund an inter-senior secondary school essay competition to encourage young Gambians to take up reading and writing as these two are very important aspects of development. The impact of literature in development efforts of countries cannot be overemphasized. Thus, the idea is to promote national development through the promotion of literature.
Scope
Schools from Banjul to Bansang were invited to take part in this important competition. All in all, about twenty-two students participated from a similar number of schools. They wrote prose and poems and submitted them to Mr Hassoum Ceesay, Director of Copyright and Vice President of the Writers’ Association of the Gambia.
The aim was to have more participants but after waiting till the deadline expired, these were the only submissions received. A panel of experts was given the task of going through all the essays and decide which ones were the best. Six of the twenty or so entries were chosen from the lot.
The committee sat at the conference hall of the NCAC to vet these entries. Finally, after painstakingly going through all the submissions, the panel came out with six essays as the best. These were then further screened to be published in an anthology by the Writers’ Association of the Gambia.
The book was published and distributed among all the participants and will be sold in the country and proceeds will go to WAG in preparation for next year’s competition. This is expected to become an annual event in order to improve the written and spoken language of the school going children and prepare them for the work of national development as they are the future of the country.
The entire exercise was coordinated by Mr Hassoum Ceesay, Vice President of WAG, himself and acomplished writer, Mrs Ramatoulie Othman, Financial Secretary of WAG, a writer, and a number of support staff who all together worked tirelessly to ensure that the process was smooth and successful.
By Musa Bah (Tha Scribbler)