We’re excited to announce our annual writing challenge. In this challenge we call on you to write and share your ideas about the ways in which we can address the issues facing our generation today. The best entries will receive cash prizes plus gifts.
If you’ve taken part in our previous writing competitions then you get the idea. If you haven’t, you can have a look at our past competition. Thanks to the generous patronage of Nurture in Literacy, USA.
Before we forge ahead, let’s dwell on the competition for a minute
We’ve been doing our best to get more voices to advocate for issues facing our society today. These issues include, unemployment, climate change, entrepreneurship and self-employment, literacy and skills, and equal opportunity to jobs and public procurement opportunities.
We’re also aiming to engage more youth to get their opinions on how to mitigate some of these challenges around these issues. We invite you to think of this writing challenge differently. Yes, it’s a competition. But it could work the other way round. It might be a bit intimidating, except if you think of it as motivation.
We believe competition can work for all us. It can make us better at our craft. It also gives us an opportunity to get our opinions across. Last year we engaged writers as part of the efforts by The African Book Club to gauge the awareness and involvement of the youth in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This year we’re doing it differently
This is our second annual writing challenge. It’s organized by Selibeng.com and The African Book Club. The writing challenge will run from 07 June 2018 to 23 July 2018. And then we’ll take 2 weeks to evaluate all the submissions. Carefully chosen submissions will be published on Selibeng.com regardless of their competition status.
The writing challenge requires the participants to apply their analytical and writing skills, and/or personal experiences to develop captivating essays about some of the issues facing youth in Lesotho and how to best mitigate them. It’s open to all individuals in Lesotho but we encourage youth to participate. Better yet, compete in this context.
Your prompt is the images below:
These images have been carefully selected to encourage interesting and thoughtful responses. Your submission should combine elements of all the 3 images. Remember to treat these images as suggestions and not as commandments.
You might find these writing resources helpful:
- 6 of the Best Pieces of Advice from Successful Writers
- Essay Writing: The Basics
- The 7 Secrets of Writing From the Best Writers in the World
- Essay Structure
Our judge for the competition is Rimme Mastebroek
Rimme Mastebroek is a Dutch journalist, who works for the Nederlands Dagblad (‘The Dutch Daily’), a nationwide newspaper that was established in 1944. He is also the Senior Editor at Dag6 (‘Day6’), a christian news platform targeted at millennials.
Before joining the Nederlands Dagblad and Dag6, Mastebroek was an editor at BEAM. This online christian lifestyle platform reaches hundreds of thousands of young people every month.
Mastebroek graduated in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 2012. He visited Lesotho twice. In 2014 he stayed at Ha Ntsi for a month to contribute to a local Youth for Christ project.
This year he explored the majestic Ts’ehlanyane National Park. Mastebroek is married to Paula, who studied at the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College in Swaziland. The Southern African region holds a special place in their hearts.
Our competition prizes
We’re laying down some exciting gifts for the best 5 winning entries for this writing challenge.
- Custom Personal Website/Blog with setup fees paid in full for 2 years + M500 Cash
- Book Hamper + M500 Shopping Voucher
- Painting Artwork + M200 Shopping Voucher
- T-shirt + Gifts
- Gifts
Submission Guidelines
- Only one entry per candidate is permitted
- Entries should be minimum of 1000 words with a maximum of 2000 words
- Entries must be an original piece of writing and not published elsewhere or submitted to other competitions
- Entries must be submitted in Microsoft Word Format
- Deadline for submissions is 23 July 2018
- All entries should be emailed to: newsletter@selibeng.com
All the best with your writing!