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Lolo Legoabe first heard about the Word Warrior Competition from her teacher, Mr Mataza, who teaches her at Boskop Primary School in Honeydew, Johannesburg. When Lolo learnt that she had won the competition last year, she was beyond shocked.
“I had no words; I was completely overwhelmed and had a flush of emotions,” Lolo says over the phone, a clear happiness coming through the other end of the line as she chats to me from the office of her principal, Mrs Le Roux.
“Lolo is such a special child, isn’t she?” she asks me after the interview.
Lolo has brought Boskop Primary quite a bit of fame lately, but the 12-year-old remains humbled by the great feat she achieved, and more determined than ever to sharpen her writing skills.
Read Educational Trust runs the competition. The theme for last year’s was My Treasure, and entrants had to describe what that meant to them. Lolo jumped at the opportunity to write an essay describing her family of five, whom she says are the most important people in her life.
“Family is more important than anything; that was the first thing that popped into my head when I thought about what my treasure was,” she says.
Lolo says that winning the competition has boosted her confidence and allowed her to believe in herself and her ability to pen stories.
“I’ve learnt that one must never look down on oneself. I thought I had no chance of winning the competition, but I did. Whatever one writes, one must leave it in God’s hands,” she says.
The avid reader is currently throwing herself into Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom.
“He was a legend. His journey is so overwhelming and what he’s done for South Africa is mind-blowing,” she says.
Lolo’s love for the written word began when her mother bought her a copy of the classic fairy tale, Cinderella. “I got it as a gift for my birthday from my mum for my seventh birthday, and I’ve absolutely loved reading since then,” she says.
Naturally, her mother was ecstatic that Lolo had won.
“We do try to read a lot at home, so my mum was so happy when I won the competition,” she says.
Lolo has no plans of stopping her budding writing career, and has every intention of becoming a novelist one day.
“I’ve already started working on the essay for this year’s competition, and it seems to be going okay for the moment. I started writing it two months ago,” Lolo says, with eagerness beaming from her voice.
When Lolo submitted her essay last year, she had to submit no more than three pages, and this year’s competition rules remain the same.
“I enjoy writing longer essays in general, even in school, so for the competition I am enjoying it a lot. The minute I start writing, I have ideas flowing through my head, and by the time I start reading what I have written, it’s really phenomenal to see how my stories come together,” she says.
In the sobering report released last year based on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, South Africa was rated last out of 50 countries, which revealed that 78% of Grade 4 learners in the country are illiterate. It is for this reason that initiatives like this competition are important to instil in learners a sense of excitement and interest about reading and writing.
The competition, now in its fourth year, received between 600 and 800 entries last year, according to public relations and fund-raising manager for Read Educational Trust, Lizelle Langford.
“We are looking for a writer who has a voice and personality that shines through in the writing; someone who has written an original and imaginative piece that will entertain the reader and make them ask for more. Spelling, grammar and construction count, but are not the main criteria,” Langford says, as she explains that the competition does exactly that – encourages learners to have a go at writing.
“Word Warrior is an opportunity for our children to express themselves freely, have fun in coming up with an original story and give their imaginations free rein. You can only become a better writer if you write more. Sometimes the fear of not doing it correctly, not being able to reach set standards, prevents children from trying. Here we encourage everyone to give it a go,” she says.
Langford says that the judging process does not seek to simply mark the actual grammatical construction of the essays, but is also geared towards the creativity of the story telling.
“The hope is always that the writer will ask for help in finalising the story – check the spelling in a dictionary or with a teacher or parent, check the grammar in the same way and, in doing so, learn even more. We learn by doing, get better with practice and feel validated when we get some reward – either from praise or by winning prize money from the competition,” she says.
“We are hoping that the prompt for the 2018 Word Warrior story will unleash wild imaginations and have children conjuring great adventures. Plotting a story, creating a character and then telling an entertaining tale require children to use all the skills they have learnt at school and at home – we need to see that come together in the entries for 2018,” Langford says.
In an extract from Lolo’s winning essay, she talks about the ‘five musketeers’ in her family:
Oh, my goodness, before we go into detail or any further ... It was very difficult to get the hang of the topic, but as time went by I started to understand and identify with the concept of what the topic My Treasure meant.
I recently discovered a treasure that I had had for nearly 11 years and eight months without noticing that it even existed. My family: my family and I are like fingers and nails because we understand each other, confide in each other and always give each other a shoulder to cry on – even though we sometimes have our own ups and downs.
My mum always says this: a family that never has a conflict and never fights with each other, to me, is a totally monstrously abnormally weird and dysfunctional family.
As a family of five we have a sort of a nickname and a catch phrase. Family nickname: The Five Musketeers or The Five Crazyteers. Family catch phrase: We may be known as the five Jack of All Trades but we call ourselves the Master of One.
Entries for this year’s competition are now open, and close on October 31.
Entries should be no longer than three pages and are open to learners between the ages of nine and 16.
This year’s competition will see learners writing a fictional story based on the character of detective WW Inkomba, which means “clue” in isiZulu or isiXhosa. Inkomba goes on a fact-finding mission, and learners will have to develop Inkomba’s character.
The winner will receive a R1 000 cash prize, and their school will receive R5 000 worth of books.
For more information on how to enter, contact the Read Educational Trust on 087 237 7781 or visit the website at www.read.org.za.
Entries can be submitted to info@read.co.za or can be mailed to PO Box 30994, Braamfontein, 2017
