A non-profit service organization, Write for World, has climaxed its maiden community educational project dubbed, “The Write for World Challenge” with an awards ceremony at Santrokofi in the Oti Region of Ghana.
The awards ceremony was attended by students from the three participating community Junior High Schools together with traditional leaders, parents, and key stakeholders.
Speaking at the event, the Executive Secretary of Write for World, Miss Godsgold Borklo- Hadjah, said the Santrokofi community was the first pot of call for the maiden edition of the Challenge, following a news broadcast of a chief who lamented on the dwindling educational standard and rising indiscipline among youth in the area.
She said, “the chief at a durbar expressed fear of what would become of the community in the next generation if the chiefs and elders were no more.”
She explained that the project was therefore instituted as an innovative student-centered educational activity to raise responsible citizens for society.
Miss Ellen Amevor, a retired educationist who doubles as a project advisor, said even though successive governments in Ghana and other parts of the world had taken the bold step to bear the cost of education from basic to secondary levels, there was still the need for other stakeholders to contribute to support education to help meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal Four (4) which is to “Ensure inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
The Hohoe Municipal Director of Education, Dr. Gladys Amenyah, said despite writing skills, was taught in the schools, students needed to practice more to perfect the skills of writing.
She disclosed that the emergence of social media, in particular, has given rise to “Electronic English” which if not checked will result in the next generation suffering serious writing defects.
She added that the significance of writing cannot be overemphasized as writing was the basic skill required to gain employment.
Dr. Gladys Amenyah stressed that writing also improves creativity and imagination while expanding one’s communicative skills and confidence.
She commended the organizers of the maiden project and asked for the project to be extended to other communities.
The project coordinator, Mr. Jonas Mabe, indicated that the organization is managed by a group of self-sacrificing volunteer English tutors and educationists, some retired and others still in active service, who believe that literacy, as a concept, ought to be tackled holistically in the educational curriculum.
“As a result, there was the need to balance students’ reading and writing skills. Unfortunately, more attention has been paid to reading skills compared to writing skills which also helps the students to develop their cognitive capabilities”, he said.
Mr. Mabe added that beyond the awards, Write for World Clubs would be inaugurated in all the three competing schools to revive the spirit of creative writing by mentoring the students and also use the clubs as an avenue to expose the students to other educational seminars and symposiums just it is done for as their counterparts in urban areas.
Mr. Mabe called on stakeholders and corporate entities and individuals to support the project to make it sustainable.
Nana Ollator (IV), the Kyidomhene of Santrokofi Traditional Area, tasked parents to be interested in the progress of their wards in schools to help raise disciplined students.
Commenting on the benefit the project will bring to students, the traditional leader expressed optimism that the Write for World Challenge Project will raise the standard of education in the community.
The Write for World Challenge was launched to discover potentials in creative writing and building a generation of critical thinkers.
Winners from the writing competition took home various items such as school bags, textbooks, dictionaries, exercise books, t-shirts, packaged tom-brown, mathematical sets, and other writing materials.
Credit: Fred Quame Asare, JoyNews Journalist
