MEDIA RELEASE
Top student essay writers participate in creative writing workshop
 
The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) and the National Secretariat for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2009 today invited twenty (20) students to participate in two Creative Writing Workshops, held at the International Financial Centre, Port of Spain.

The students submitted top entries to the 2009 Trinidad & Tobago Commonwealth Essay Competition, and wrote on the theme ‘What Trinidad and Tobago Can Teach the World.’
 
Students from schools like Bishop Anstey High, St. Augustine Girls’, the International School of Trinidad and Tobago and Bishop’s High School in Tobago were warmly welcomed by Senior Coordinator CHOGM, Sharifa Ali-Abdullah and Competitions Manager, RCS London, Catherine Clark.
 
“We thought that we should not miss this chance to really give our young people an opportunity to participate in the CHOGM process,” Ali-Abdullah said. “We also did not want to do a competition without helping you to enhance your already considerable writing skills.”
 
Clark gave the competitors warm congratulations for coming out on top of a pool of over 200 entrants, and advised them that reading their essays was a genuine pleasure for her.
 
“What came across is how much you love your country,” she said.  Clark added that her role at the RCS included giving young people a voice through creative projects and these projects have helped produce youth who are eager to take their participation to another level in their countries. “The point is to get people talking about global issues.”  

 
Founder of the Oratory Foundation Deborah Jean-Baptiste Samuel facilitated the under-14 workshop, while Trinidad Guardian columnist and fiction writer Debbie Jacob held court with the 14 to 18 age group. After the workshop, entrants and their guardians were treated to lunch on the Caribbean Princess Cruise Liner, where the grand prize winners will be announced during a special ceremony.
 
The essay competition was organised jointly by the RCS and the Secretariat. The grand prize for the under-14 is a laptop computer, courtesy Digi-data Systems Limited, while the grand prize winner of the 14 to 18 year category will win a trip to London to participate in the Commonwealth Observance Day in Westminster Abbey.









                                    CHOGM-TT 32-2009