Kohima, November 22 (MExN): The Kohima Educational Society (KES) Nagaland, the counterpart of the Kohima Educational Trust (KET) on Monday announced the winners of its Essay Writing Contest, 2021.
The essay contest prizes will be awarded on November 30 by Dr Easterine Kire at Hotel Japfü, Kohima and in an interactive session with young writers, author Dr Avinuo Kire will speak on the topic, “We are our stories,” the KES informed in a press release. (See table for list of winners)
KES invited entries for the ‘Verba volant, scripta manent’ essay contest from September 25 and closed on October 10, receiving over 80 essays in two categories.
Category A with the theme ‘Influence of Social Media on Naga Youth’ was open for 16 years and below, while Category B with the theme ‘Affinity of Naga Youth to Land, Water, Forests and Wildlife’ was open for 16 years and above.
The release stated that in keeping with the Gordon Graham Prize for Naga Literature mandate to promote good writing, recognize and reward knowledge-keepers and idea-givers and to encourage reading and writing within the Naga society, the KES has been carrying out programmes to encourage young and aspiring writers besides striving to reward Naga writers and to raise their profiles. Earlier, a workshop was held for young and aspiring writers and this year it held the essay contest which, it said, forms an important component in the pursuit of the society’s mission statement.
“We are both humbled and grateful for the tremendous response we received from Naga youth all over the State… and it makes us optimistic about the future of the literary scene in Naga society,” it added.
Twenty best essays in each category were shortlisted by an in-house team of KES and in turn a panel of three independent judges for each category evaluated the same. The judges were drawn from the fields of education, writers and the NGO sector working in the field of environment and livelihood amongst Naga communities, the release stated.
