Stakes raised in Mawu /Fattani Essay contest

Tom Sangala July 13, 2015

536 2 minutes read

The prizes in the Malawi Writers Union (Mawu)/ Fattani Essay have been raised with the deadline also extended from July 31, 2015 to October 31, 2015 to more room to more students to participate in the competition.

Mawu announced recently that in partnership with Fattani they were dangling this competition with the first prize being K70,000, second prize K40,000 and third prize being K20,000.

However, Mawu and Fattani Offset Printers said during a press briefing in Blantyre on Friday that the prizes have been raised from K70,000 to K80,000 for the first prize with 10 units of exercise books while the runner up will pocket K50,000 from K40,000 and 10 units of exercise books.

The third prize will see the winner receiving K 30,000 from K20,000 and 10 units of exercise books. There will also be consolation prizes of K5,000 each for three people and five units of exercise books each.

Mawu President Sambalikagwa Mvona said the competition is targeting form one and form two students and that they will extend it to form three and four next year.

“We want to breed new crop of writers as you may wish to know that most of our writers are aged and others are dead so we want to bring new crop of writers, said Mvona.

The Mawu leader said that the essay competition is asking students to think about their future at the same time testing their ability to communicate with the community on the topic ‘Who I want to become when I finish school.’

We would like to thank Fattani for supporting this competition, it’s rare that such competitions take place and so we urge other companies to come out and support different writing competitions,” said Mvona.

The guidelines of the competition entail that entrants must be students from Malawi schools, both public and private and that their essays should not exceed 2,000 words and that the entries should be in English.

Fattani Offset Printers Sales and Marketing Manager Thabwa Byson Kaiya said they were happy to partner Mawu in the competition as part of propelling writing in the country.

“Actually Mawu approached Fattani because our chairman Abdul Fattani has been a writer since his childhood days and so he did not hesitate but to come in and support this competition. This is just the beginning, the success of this competition will determine what to do next but we are ready to continue sponsoring this competition and through it, we want to encourage many writers to write and also motivate them,” said Kaiya.

Fattani said earlier that he would love the country to produce more writers hence sponsoring this competition.

“Education is very important so we need to encourage students to work hard in all subjects but also take time to encourage them to read and write. So this competition is aimed at giving a chance to students to show their writing prowess. I am a writer myself and I love writing and for your information I am in the process of publishing a book,”.

Mvona said they will continue to create more competitions as part of motivating writers in the country.

Mawu has so far given out prizes in Religious Awards competitions and Legendary Awards. The writers’ body is also expected to give out prizes in the Peer Gynt Awards in September.