Finalists emerge for Vision of the Child 2015 contest

LAST week 60 finalists in the Vision of the Child (VOTC) 2015 competition for primary and secondary school students in Lagos State in yhe age range 9-12. The contest has as theme ‘The Road to Sambisa’ and is organised by Lagos Black Heritage Festival (LBHF) in which Prof. Wole Soyinka has been consultant since inception.

  While addressing the 60 finalists for the contest last Thursday, Soyinka said his heart still went out to the Chibok schoolgirls that were abducted by Boko Haram and yet to be recovered from Sambisa forest by the Federal Government, the reason for choosing the unique ‘The Road to Sambisa’ theme for this year’s contest.

  Lagos Black Heritage Festival’s Vision of the Child competition which had over 250 student participants from 60 different schools in Lagos, according to the Festival Secretary and Programme Manager, Foluke George, is a continuation of the innovation of the organisation introduced in 2014 as an interactive test to stretch youthful imagination and skills across the genres of creative writing and painting among children.

  This year’s competition, which is being sponsored by Diamond Bank, HoneyWell Noodles and Microsoft, unlike previous years, would require children contestants to express their vision about the missing Chibok schoolgirls in two creative media: painting and the literary arts. They are required to write a poetry, prose fiction or essay and paint such ideas so expressed.

  Soyinka stated that the result of the competition would be taken round the country for their counterparts in the North East to see that children in the South West corner of the country cared deeply about what happened to their distressed counterparts elsewhere in solidarity.