Oluchi Chibuzor
Recognising the importance of mental reasoning among school children, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Lagos branch, has concluded its spelling bee competition for children ages five to 10, rewarding the winners with education materials.
Speaking at the event in Lagos recently, the Chairman, Lagos Branch, YWCA, Mrs Oluyomi Oludipe, described the event as timely and needed, calling for more corporate interventions in the educational sector.
She said the association saw the need to grow and bridge the education gap.
“This is one of the programmes that we do, and it is the first we are doing when it comes to the spelling bee. What we have done previously is to have programmes about citizenship: why you should be a good citizen of this country and why you should have self-worth and self-discovery,” Oludipe said.
Explaining the rationale behind the competition, Oludipe stated, “At this spelling bee competition, we are looking at the very young, especially those between the ages of four to 10. Our reason for doing this is that we want our society to be better informed and cultured to build leaders.
She added the need to focus more on other subjects and not only on spelling.
“We need people to revive what we used to have, like JETS clubs, encouraging people to do science subjects, humanities and local languages. Local languages are our identity, and we cannot go abroad and be speaking another person’s language,” Oludipe explained. “We should also let them know our language and culture, so people should promote culture, language and sciences.”
The President of the YWCA Methodist Church, Festac, Mrs Fola Adeshina, said the competition would empower young ones with educational materials to support the church community.
“We believe if children understand the origin of words and can spell them correctly, it will help them develop from there and to express themselves with boldness. With books, school bags, umbrellas, etc., to over 20 of them, it will go a long way to remind them of the principles of diligence and hard work in all spheres of life.”
At the end of the keenly contested competition following four rounds of words ranging from easy to medium and difficult words, Okeleke Daniel, Kamson Yochukwu and Shawn Odeniyi emerged winners for ages five to seven.
While for ages eight to 10, Eze Chibuzor, Teniola Oladele and Emmanuel Kurunmi emerged as winners.
