27 Aug 2017

The introduction of the Annual Young Authors Award at senior and junior secondary schools will accord students an opportunity to learn creative writing skills, intellectual property and copyright issues.

Speaking in an interview with BOPA, project owner, Kagiso Selabe said the project intended to capacitate students to be future authors in the creative industry with the ability to write amazing pieces.

He said developing the reading culture among the students would ultimately benefit many and develop the creative industry as seen by Hollywood in the United States of

America through different composers and producers, who played a critical role in making the industry what it is today.

Selabe said many youth today like social media and the platform could be used to enhance their intellectual ideas that need particular attention.

He further said the project entailed visiting 48 schools around the country starting with Molefhi Senior, including seven junior schools in the Kgatleng District and it has been scheduled to start next week.

Therefore, he said the annual award would help them apply their brains to a certain topic that would be given in creative writing and the pieces would be judged and the winner would walk away with P10 000, while the runners up gets P5 000 and P2 500 respectively.

He added that he had packaged a motivational talk entitled Living Diamonds Achievers, which focused on academic excellence.

Mr Selabe said the motivational talk aimed to bring awareness to students that their brains were like diamonds and through applying their intellectual abilities they could achieve anything that they wanted.

He said the application of mind to educational performance accorded one endless opportunities in life.

“I have personally pledged P10 000 to any student in government schools who obtains A* in all subjects.

He encouraged students to know that they could compete with their fellow students at private schools and could do far better than them.

Mr Selabe said he wanted to motivate and encourage students to believe in themselves and know that they had the potential to do anything.

He said he would engage other stakeholders and partners to adopt some of the schools to help improve academic excellence.

He said this was not an easy project as it was demanding, but he wanted to be an agent of change and help the upcoming generation realise that the future was in their own hands.

Mr Selabe said the official launch of the project would be held at Sabi Sabi gardens at Boseja in Mochudi and was being funded by Companies and Intellectual Property Authority. ENDS