Parents and guardians have been urged to encourage children to participate in the second edition of the Kigali Public Library (KPL) annual writing competition which is now open.

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With the reading and writing culture on the decline, partly due to technological advancement, parents and guardians can play a key role in nurturing youngsters into future writers and authors.

The annual competition, which was launched in 2021, seeks to develop the passion in writing among young people in public and private schools, especially in lower, upper primary and secondary.

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According to Eric Dukundane, the project manager at KPL, the annual contest is aimed at preparing the next generation of writers as Rwanda "continues to do everything to improve education for all.”

Dukundane pointed out that the writing is in line with the country’s efforts to achieve its vision which is to build a knowledge-based economy and to transform the country from a low-income to a middle-income nation. Writing and reading are part of the key skills to equip young people with.

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"Each year, the students are requested to write on a particular subject commonly for the aim of raising awareness or educating the Rwandan communities on different issues that our society is facing today,”

"This is mainly to enhance the creative writing skills among Rwandan communities with the opportunity to become published authors and promote particularly inclusive reading and writing among Rwandan youth,” Dukundane explained.

Among other things, the contest is aimed at ensuring that children achieve high language proficiency in English, French, Kinyarwanda, and Sign language, while at the same time enhancing their reading and writing skills as well as stimulating their imagination and creativity.

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"As part of language proficiency skills, the writing competition objectives are to enhance writing and communication abilities for students as a great way for learning new vocabulary and grammar every day,” he explained.

The long term objective is to inspire and develop the next generation of humankind and professionals by building their language skills and expertise in different languages.

Through the writing competition, students will be able to contribute to raising awareness on mental health, particularly in schools, as well as other topical issues which they can tackle through their essays.

The writing contest is also expected to complement the Competency-Based Curriculum through enhancement of writing skills and boost experiential learning benefits provided by the KPL through an additional collegiate and career competition opportunity.

"This competition will help to provide the next generation of writers and authors with skills and experiences to start different careers to generate creative solutions to mental health, social, literacy, and cultural problems,” the library said in an announcement.

How winners will be selected

The competition is scored out of 100 grades, where pre-selection accounts for 60 percent and interview selection accounts for the remaining 40 percent.

A total of 192 best compositions in each language and category will pass to the next stage while 9 winners in each language and category will pass to the interview selection. In total 48 compositions will be selected for the finale.

Judges will look out for plagiarism, originality, ideas and concepts, word limit/ video minutes limit, grammar, unique writing style, creativity, descriptive language, good diction, catching the reader’s attention, confidence and how contestants will be able to present their stories.

The competition accepts digital applications via www.kplonline.org/wc or physical applications through schools, community libraries and at Kigali Public Library.

Applications will close on March 17 while the pre-selection phase will take place from March 20 to 31. The 192 pre-selected contestants will be interviewed between April 24 and May 9 while the awarding ceremony will take place on May 27.

The winning stories will be published between June and July. Three winners in each category will take home laptops, bicycles, kindles, tablets, books, white canes, library memberships and many other prizes.

Located in Kacyiru, KPL is an open and public platform that inspires communities to read, learn, and discover. The library says it seeks to create a modern and inspiring environment that fosters learning, literacy, and culture both physical and digital.