Despite the fact that we have few amenities, my people still survive. What a beautiful and amazing thing!! My home town does not have good roads and water, yet they get their water from the streams and use foot paths as short-cuts… I hope that all I have written, both the good and bad sides of my home town, have proven it to be a lovable and wonderful place worthy of writing about. What a beautiful place I have come from! I adore Oyan, my home town.

Above are some of the words of Fatai Fatoki, one of the winners of the just concluded Naijatreks Young Writers’ Contest 2011 which took place at FUTA (Federal University of Technology, Akure) Secondary School, in Ondo State, yesterday.

The topic of the writing contest was “I love my home-town”, and Fatai Fatoki (SS2) took first position in the senior secondary School category, while Oladiran Esther (Jss3) took first position among the Junior Secondary School category.

They got the Naijatreks branded school bags, while those who took second and third positions were awarded adventure novels among which were The Seven Scrolls (by Wilbur Smith) and Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmole (A Brave Hunter inside the Forest of A Thousand Demons By Pa Fagunwa).
So impressive and amusing were the stories written by the kids, especially those from the junior secondary schools.

Some students even went further to quote the coordinates of their home-town (wonder where he got that from), while another said her home town is “Isan-Ekiti in Osun State”, and some others out rightly admitted that they haven’t been to their home-towns before.

The basic criteria we employed in selecting our winners were content + grammar, and the winners impressively expressed both.

Come next year January, we shall conduct more writing tests for other schools in other States.

Filed under: Naijatreks Young Writers Contest