By Amin Kef (Ranger)
It is no gainsaying the fact that though Sierra Leone is a member of the African Spelling Bee Consortium, the possibility of Sierra Leone’s spelling bees getting to the African Spelling Bee championship to be held in the USA might be a far-fetched dream.
However, there is still a small time left for the country to participate provided the Government may decide to reverse its initial response of non-availability of funding for that purpose or a private entity decides to support the participants to take part in the competition.
Despite this, Malawi’s representatives at the African Spelling Bee in Uganda-File photo African Spelling Bee Senior-Champion are set to travel to the United States of America (USA), soon.
The prize includes airfare and accommodation for the champion and one parent. The National Malawi Spelling Bee founder, Lewis Mbaula, said Scripps National Spelling Bee is the biggest and oldest Spelling Bee, in the world.
“Scripps National Spelling Bee is a partner of Malawi National Spelling Bee and also works in partnership with Spelling Bee organizations around the world,” Mbaula said.
Participants of African Spelling will be drawn from 20 countries and, according to Mbaula, 18 countries have confirmed their participation and they include Malawi, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Lesotho.
African Spelling Bee was first hosted in South Africa in 2016 and then 2017, before moving to Kenya in 2018 and then Uganda in 2019.
The contest returns this year following a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19.
In Sierra Leone, the founding member and Executive Director of the Initiative in Capacity Building Association International (ICBAI), Isata Harding, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is still working to ensure that Sierra Leone participates in the Spelling Bee Competition across Africa and the world at large for primary schools across the country.
Isata Harding believes that Spelling Bee is a healthy competition that is done internally in schools and externally in communities as a national and international competition.
She added that it would be a good thing to get the children interested in a venture that will change their perspective for the better on both education and against violent conduct. She said improvement in reading will definitely have positive effects on students.
On the issue of this year’s Spelling Bee competition to be held in the USA, she maintained that she is disappointed that the Government of Sierra Leone and other partners could not provide funds to assist the three competitors for the Spelling Bee in the USA. She maintained, however, that she is optimistic that before these competitors travel, they would receive God’s blessing in addition to the blessing of the Government as far as tickets and emoluments are concerned.
Past Sierra Leone Spelling Bee Competitions were in the likes of Blessing Carew (three years old), Simon Kamara (ten years old), Godfreyna F. Kamara (fourteen years old) and a host of other contestants that travelled out of Sierra Leone, to compete against their colleagues from other countries in Uganda and lately in Dubai where they emerged victorious, even if they did not come out as winners!
Against this background, Madam Isata Harding is calling on the Government, Education Ministry and other players to do what they can to assist the Spelling Bees reach USA to participate in this year’s competition.
