ABCA proudly sponsors The MINT’s inaugural writing competition
Wow, it finally happened! Our first ever creative writing competition for children in primary schools in Kenya took place between May and July this year. It was organized by The MINT Initiatives, which operates under the umbrella of ABCA Africa. The theme for this year’s competition was Celebrating the Gift of Creative Writing.
This initiative focused on enhancing writing skills that allow children to articulate their thoughts and feelings effectively, fostering creativity and critical thinking. It is planned as an annual event to bring together creativity from children in different schools, backgrounds and locations.
The aim of the competition is to nurture creativity at an early stage by providing a platform where the writing skill is recognized and rewarded.
The competition was divided into two categories: grades 4 – 6 (Junior) and grades 7 – 10 (Senior). Participating schools were allowed to register as many learners as they could in both categories. They were to compete for the top three positions, which would be given awards.
A total of 35 schools across 20 counties registered to participate in the competition. However, only 9 schools submitted their learners’ essays, a much lower number than we had expected. We are grateful, though, for the ones who put in the effort, both teachers and learners, to participate in the competition. We also had a team of four professional judges to help us evaluate the essays – two ladies and two gentlemen drawn from different fields who did quite a wonderful and commendable job. A big ‘thank you’ to Chrisphine Okoth, Phoebe Achieng’, Charity Akomo and Victor Ogot for your wise contributions to the judging process.
Summary of the judges’ Comments
A key concern was the use of AI by a few of the learners, which spoke of the possibility that they were not willing to do their own writing. This begs the question, how can we make creative writing more fun or interesting for children?
Some essays exhibited very little creativity, a parameter that carried the highest marks in the marking scheme. How then do we nurture the creativity and imagination of children?
Some of the learners were really creative and used various literary tools like similes, analogies and even crafting a story within a story. I still remember how some of the essays painted a picture of the learner’s dream as an adult writer – very descriptive, very ambitious in nature. They exhibited real potential for becoming great writers in future!
Congratulations to the learners who attained the top 3 positions in this competition!
Written by ABCA Africa director and the MINT founder Rosemary Odongo
September 2026
