Stepping Stones 'cap' writing wiz kids

MPHO TLALE
Staff Writer | Thursday June 6, 2013 00:00

In an interview with Showbiz, the leadership skills coordinator Nontombi Gungqisa said that they organised the writing competition in conjunction with the Rotary Club. She said that the Rotary Club wanted to donate dictionaries, but their recipients had to work for them.'We wanted to do something that would stimulate some thinking, which is why we settled on a writing competition,' Gungqisa said. This was a good decision because the children who entered the competition were stimulated to think critically.

Held under the theme, The Voice of a Fatherless Child, the writing competition had eight entrants who wrote poetry pieces. Gungqisa said that out of the total, the top three were chosen based on the quality of their work.She said that the theme guiding the writings was a sequel to their survey whose result indicated that women head most households. She added that it is against this background that almost all the children are able to relate to it.The winner of the competition Samuel Modimakwane said that he was influenced by the fact that he was raised without a father. He said that his poem captures the challenges he has to face without a father and what he has managed to achieve despite that. Second runner up Kago Monowe said his influence came from his father's passing when he was doing standard five and what life has been like since then.

For the third runner-up Rapelang Tsele, she said that since she grew up without a father the competition gave her a chance to offload her emotions.The winners have since been awarded dictionaries and getting their poems promoted to be published by various media