Oberlin student tops Shortwood library essay competition

ALEXIS GAYLE-GRANT, a 15-year-old student of Oberlin High School in Kingston, could not contain her excitement when it was announced that she was the winner of the Shortwood Branch Library's Annual Essay Competition.

The prize-giving ceremony for the essay competition was held recently at the Shortwood Branch Library, St Andrew.

"I feel so excited and grateful for this opportunity. This is the first time I'm entering this competition, because my teacher introduced it to the class and I decided to enter it with my friend," Gayle-Grant told The Gleaner.

"I really enjoyed writing the essay on my heroes, who are Usain Bolt, Louise Bennett-Coverley, and Norman Manley. I really feel good about this and will definitely be entering more essay competitions and try in all areas," she added.

The theme for this year's staging of the competition was 'Modern Day Heroes'.

Colleen Mignott, librarian at the Shortwood Branch Library, noted that the theme was inspired by the recognition that, as children begin to define their own ideals such as human rights, equality, honour, and justice, they often seek to identify heroes who symbolise the qualities and ambitions that they themselves aspire for.

"We thought that children use such ideals to define themselves, so we wanted to see them bring that out in their current-day heroes, not only the ones that are gone such as Marcus Garvey and Norman Manley, as there are several that are among us today. Some even wrote about their teachers as their heroes, and that is really good," Mignott said.

She also stated that the competition is a part of the library's community outreach programme.

"We like to consider ourselves as stakeholders in the education process as a library service, especially as a public library. So in doing this, we tried to help the children to develop their writing skills," she said.

Mignott added: "This competition has been running for five years, and it is growing. There are certain dimensions that have been added in this year's edition, such as when we decided to award the teacher for the winning student as well, because of the fact that they put in so much work."