Friday 23 August 2019
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The Treasured Writers turns 13 TALES FROM THE MAIN ROAD
EUGENIA ABU
I
n 2007, I could not find a summer school which spoke to my spirit for my children. We seemed to always be doing tie and dye and run round parks and come home empty. My nest was filling up fast and the kids did not want any more of those. I also found that my children did not want more of what they had learnt in school like more math or more social studies. Children wanted to learn other things that were not offered in school, wanted to play and let out steam and just wanted to be themselves. I understood it but no one seemed to be offering those things my children wanted and those things I dreamt about. So I set up the The Treasured Writers (TTW), Abuja’s longest running and only week-long summer writing workshop. I was as excited as the 17 other parents who came along with me. We have loved the summer workshop and continued to grow every year. From about 24 children we now receive about 40 -50 children every year. We give this opportunity to kids between the ages of 7 and 14 years of age. Our TTW participants when they turn 15 years become
junior facilitators who help us look after the other children while benefitting the same course and becoming responsible. It has been an incredible journey as I look back and see our children graduating from universities. One year, a Chicago-based Nigerian architect who had done some work putting up a movie house and galleria in Abuja joined us as a resource person. The young participant who followed him around is now an architect. Another year we flew in Kate Henshaw to teach acting and a shy participant was so fired up by Kate that she was given the role of angry wife which she did, with so much aplomb. Today she is in Canada about to graduate in the field of Theatre and Media and leads her school’s dance troupe. We have been amazed by the impact this has made and are proud of our over 500 participants; particularly of our repeat parents. Mrs Odah and Mrs Aku brought their children every year and when they turned 15 brought them to learn how to manage other children. We have been blessed over the years with amazing resource persons and excellent volunteer facilitators. The resource persons have included Head of Mccarthur Foundation for Africa Dr Kole Shettima who never refuses whenever we ask him to come and teach our children the seven qualities of a good leader. Ditto, Dr Otive Igbuzor, Chief of Staff to the current Deputy Senate President, and President of the Africa
Centre for Leadership and Strategy who has come in many times to teach the children leadership. We have been blessed by Chinyere Obi Obasi, NLNG-shortlisted children’s writer and Tricia Adaobi Nwaubani, Commonwealth literature prize winner, who have both come to teach the children what it takes to be a writer. Most kids think writers of books are ghosts so we bring real writers to teach, engage and lunch with them. The questions from the children are always thought provoking and in some instances quite hilarious. Denja Abdullahi President of the Association of Nigeria Authors (ANA) has joined us for poetry in the bottle and we have written essays on what my little eyes see to teach a keen sense of observation. We have made our own cocktails (non-alcoholic of course), made our own salad and learnt how to make five different types of sandwiches. We have cried and laughed after the elections for TTW Ambassador and learnt to be gracious winners and gallant losers. We need to start to tell young Nigerians that winning an election is not everything and one should be kind to one’s opponent and losing is not the end of the world. The Independent National Electoral Commission has conducted two of our elections and we have had several artistes, musicians and singers as resource persons and learnt about harmony and choreography. We have had a phenomenal cartoonist from The Guardian news-
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It has been an incredible journey as I look back and see our children graduating from universities
Eugenia Abu is a broadcaster, writer, trainer, band and multimedia strategy expert and media consultant. Contact. abu_eugenia@yahoo.com
What JAMB and WAEC did to me
S
leepless nights, tons of textbooks, extra classes, splitting headaches, these are the experiences of my lifestyle as a student preparing to take my final year examinations. The deafening scold of my teachers and parents became part of my dreams, “you must excel in both your WAEC and JAMB examinations to enable you to move on to the higher institution of your choice, and enroll in your choice course”. This year’s exam came with several pieces of baggage. The general elections were postponed and held much later than originally planned causing major distortions in the education calendar. The elections originally scheduled for February 16, 2019, was moved to February 23, 2019, just a few hours before the time of the proposed election morning. This no doubt disrupted the academic timetable of most schools across the country. My school, St Francis Catholic Secondary School (SFCSS) had to reschedule the remaining part of the school’s mock examinations for SS3 (final year students) due to the postponement. This unexpected development extended my long waiting game for D-Day: the examinations. Eventually, the mock exams held successfully. After this we intensified preparations for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), especially given it was a computer-based examination of four subjects that required your full attention. Shortly after, there seemed to be hope in the horizon as the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) mock was announced to hold on April 1, 2019. Like many
of my friends, I waited patiently to confirm that the International Fools Day exam date was not a practical joke, but indeed it was licit. The UTME was rescheduled numerous times to the disadvantage of the candidates and parents who had to bear much social and financial burden – it was changed five times as rumoured on different social media platforms and websites. Each day we betted the likely date of UTME. While some of us wondered aloud, “Are the exams going to hold at all?” Finally, the dates were released. It made my family and friends release a breath we did not know we had. Between May 11 to May 17, 2019, candidates were expected to check their UTME location and examination dates on the JAMB portal, a similar process took place during the period of the mock examinations. Lo and behold, the big shocker! It was discovered that some of the specified dates for UTME clashed with some of the subjects of the WASSCE. According to the timetable, WASSCE candidates who were expected to write the subject, Animal Husbandry on 11 April by 9 am were also expected to sit for the UTME on the same day. This initially seemed comic as many candidates wondered how they would split themselves into two on that day. People came up with different thoughts; skipping WASSCE for UTME? Skipping UTME for WASSCE or rushing through UTME to meet up with WASSCE on a chartered okada since the roads will be jammed with traffic. As the days approached it became clear www.businessday.ng
paper teach facial expressions in art. Last year we had Bilkisu Jungo, of The Upcycle Architect, who taught to turn waste to wealth. We have even had our own wealth management class and we found so many potential entrepreneurs and future millionaires. We are still on this incredible journey which I facilitated every year for the last 13 years, except for the Ebola year. This year, Mrs Kokab Faroukh the award winning Pakistani artist, will to come and teach us how to make amazing decorations and art in our 2019 edition “Art is Life”. Children never cease to amaze. Bright-eyed, we continue to give children joy in Abuja for the last decade and some. Every year is different and fun-filled. I am looking forward to this year’s edition at The Eugenia Abu Media Centre at Maitama amusement park starting on Monday, 26 August 2019, as well as the TTW party which always makes us misty-eyed when we have to all go our separate ways until the following year. Yes, we are considering Easter and yes we are considering other cities in Nigeria. We hold our breath. We are thankful to all parents who trusted us with their children and for every child who came through the door. Let’s do it again this year with glints in our eyes. Selah!
CHIEMERIE EZURIKE to us that the exam bodies had moved on. On April 12 2019, my Photography examination for WASSCE coincided with my UTME. Now I had to make a major decision to either skip the UTME or the WASSCE. The third alternative of combining both as some of my colleagues had planned could not apply to me as my UTME centre was in Eputu, a village in Ibeju-Lekki while my WASSCE venue was at my school in Idimu. Traffic could take nearly four hours between the two distances, on a good day. It was indeed a sad day for me as a whirlwind of thoughts raced through my mind, “neither my parents nor school prepared me for this strange skill” I had muttered to myself. The more shocking experience was that the JAMB officials denied claims that exam dates between JAMB and WASSCE clashed. According to many media reports, Head of Public Relations, JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin said, “We (JAMB) have met with the WAEC management and WAEC has just given us an assurance that there is no clash; that people don’t just understand the modus operandi of the timetable especially as it affects the practicals.” I sought advice from different quarters. My school’s counsellor suggested I skip the UTME and first secure my WASSCE papers. My parents said I should skip the Photography exam as UTME was more important. None of the options initially made sense to me as I had already written the alternative to practical exams for Photography; therefore, skipping the main exam will only fetch me the muchdreaded F9.
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Although Photography did not have a direct bearing on my proposed course of study, my stake was quite high because of my growing interest in fashion. I sat back and began to lament about my unfortunate situation, wondering how I of all candidates became a guinea pig for WAEC and JAMB. Several weeks after this harrowing experience, l look back now with my head and wonder, “Does the government really care about me”? If the activities of JAMB and WAEC were related to conducting national and local government elections, shouldn’t government have stepped in to address the problem or could it just be that the federal government was unaware of the clash? Could it even be that WAEC and JAMB were in a contest for supremacy at the expense of the students? The most annoying experience was that I had about two weeks in between my WASSCE papers within the same period. Couldn’t JAMB and WAEC have shared information to reschedule the examinations of the affected students like me? Is our educational system so flawed that no one knows what tomorrow looks like? In my gradual journey in seeking admission into university, the much talked about infamy of Nigeria’s education system is staring me in the face like a cracked mirror. With what WAEC and JAMB did to me, I daily wonder what other surprises the system holds for my generation. Ezurike writes from Lagos
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