BY STYLE CORRESPONDENT Think Afrika — a grass root storytelling platform designed to amplify African voices has announced the winners of its national youth speech and writing competition it conducted between June and July this year.
Dubbed the “Digital storytelling for social change’’, the competition was conducted to promote the use of digital media and storytelling as tools for advancing social change.
Through a speech and writing competition themed Youth Towards Sustainable Development, the team sought to amplify youth perspectives on how Zimbabwe could scale up its actions towards achieving the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Overall, the competition attracted over 100 entries from youths across Zimbabwe’s ten provinces.
Most essay and video submissions were centred on SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). If invested in, young people’s comprehensive proposals could revolutionise Zimbabwe’s socio-economic status.
The Think Afrika national youth speech and writing competition was supported by the Davis Peace Project, Dominican Convent with a Harare-based communication enterprise TisuMazwi overseeing the adjudication process.
The Winners were as follows first prize (laptop) – Felix Museki, second prize (smartphone) – Tapiwa Chipumha, third Prize (smartphone) – Brendon Dolobo, fourth prize (tablet) – Shumirai Gunzo and fifth prize (tablet) – Austine Manyama.
In an effort to encourage youths to continue their writing and public speaking pursuits, all entrants received digital certificates and invites to submit more write-ups to be published on the Think Afrika website (www.thinkafrika.org ).
