No fewer than 100 winners have emerged in the 2020 edition of Kellogg’s flagship children scholarship scheme “Kellogg’s Superstars contest.” The winners were announced at a moderate ceremony in Lagos where they were also offered N100,000 educational grant each, amongst other prizes. The Kellogg’s Superstars contest is an essay writing competition designed for children within the age bracket of five and 12 years to sharpen their writing skills and creative ability.
Participants were required to write a short and concise essay of not more than 100 words on the topic “Why my Mum is a Super Mum”. Up to 49,989 entries were received nationwide from which the best 100 emerged as winners to receive N100,000 worth of scholarship each.
Hosting the winners in Ikeja G.R.A, Lagos, Darlington Igabali, National Marketing Manager of Kellogg’s, reiterated the drive of the initiative to support and improve educational output.
He noted that Kellogg’s being a children friendly brand was worried about the startling number of out of school children in the country, where available statistics from UNICEF confirms that one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria.
He said, “One of the reasons established for this trend is poverty. We decided to intervene with the initiative to support parent in our own little ways at ensuring that children have access to education and, more importantly, to improve the writing skills and creative ingenuity of children.
“We looked at the connection between children and mother, hence came up with the topic: ‘Why my mother is a supermum’. In 2019, when we started, it was strictly an offline exercise and we received over 35,000 entries. This year, we engaged both online and offline platforms across every region in Nigeria. This effort produced over 47,000 entries. Indeed, we are marvelled by the quality of the entries received. Our carefully selected panel screened the best 200 from the entries out if which we selected the best 100 who are being rewarded today.”
Also present at the occasion, Lukmon Lawal, the Special Adviser on Project and Finance to the speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, charged winners to continue to strive for excellence and not to rest on their oars.
While also commending Kellogg’s for promoting basic literacy, he encouraged the organisation to intensify its efforts in this regard and also encouraged other corporate entity to strengthen their investment in Corporate Social Responsibility, given the effect of COVID-19 which has affected all strata of the society.
Commenting, one of the winners, Uche Esther, who could not hide her excitement thanked the company for the privilege and the prize.
She said, “My passion for writing motivated me to take part in the essay competition. This is the first time I participated and I’m really excited to be one of the winners.”
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