The Standard
By Davison Maruziva
11 April 2010
TOPICS for this year’s Cover to Cover Short Story Writing competition were unveiled last week and the contest is expected to run until the end of May 2010. The launch of this year’s topics was held at the new offices of the British Council in Cork Road, near the South African Embassy. The British Council is one of the major partners of The Standard in running the competition. It provides both technical support and prize money for the awards.
The other major partners in the Cover to Cover Short Story Writing Competition are Stanbic Bank, the World Bank, the Culture Fund, World Vision, Nestle, and Meikles Hotel. They were all represented at the launch.
Rajiv Bendre, the Director of the British Council, in welcoming guests to the function spoke of the Council’s commitment to nurturing young talent and its support to Zimbabwe’s education sector.
Senator David Coltart, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, in declaring his ministry’s support for initiatives such as the Cover to Cover short story competition, spoke of the challenges facing the education sector in Zimbabwe.
The initiative, he said, was helping make more reading books available in schools. In 2008 The Standard published an anthology titled Children Writing Zimbabwe, based on the best stories from entries into the competition. Several thousands of copies of the anthology were given to the Ministry of Education for distribution to schools.
Raphael Khumalo, the Group CEO of Alpha Media Holdings, which publishes The Standard, said he hoped the relative peace being enjoyed would enable school children in provinces such as Mashonaland Central, East and the Midlands to take part in this year’s competition.
The level of political violence and hostility towards privately-owned newspapers especially by Zanu PF militias made it difficult for publications which carried details of the competition to penetrate the provinces. Consequently there was pronounced absence of participation by children in those regions of the country.
Entries will be accepted during April and May, with the cut-off date being May 31 2010. Judges will process and assess the entries during June and July, with the awards function likely to be held during August/ September school holidays.
Entries will also be acceptable through our countrywide agents.
The Cover to Cover Short Story Writing Competition has been one of the most exciting initiatives we have witnessed in recent years.
It proved several things: that there is an enormous interest among young people to write and tell us about what they think; that there are good people and organisations, such as the partners, who see value in the initiative; and thirdly it proved that even during Zimbabwe’s darkest moments, it was possible to spark the creative imagination of young people.
Since the launch of the competition, four years ago the competition has seen the numbers of participating students rising and the quality of the submissions quite startling.
The following are the topics discussed and the suggested age groups:
Grade VI – VII
Write a story based on this topic…
l It happened in the school garden;
l The funniest sports day at my school; and
l The earthquake.
Form I & II
Write a story based on …
l “I wish I had never been involved in the first place…†;
l “A disastrous match…†; and
l “… The forest fire took a turn for the worst…â€
Form III & IV
Write a story based on …
l “The community can still not get over the discovery…†;
l “The audience screamed for more…â€; and
l “I thought my life had just ended…â€
Form V & VI
Write a story based on the following:
l “…Then everything ended so abruptly…â€;
l The US dollar…;
l Our representative…; and
A cure has been discovered….