CIS pupils unleash creative prowess, unveil short stories, poems collection

The 2019 Literacy Week of Children’s International School (CIS), Lekki, Lagos, as packaged by the school’s management and partners in the arts industry was reinvigorating and quite expressive to the students of the school and invited schools as well.

The programme themed, Lyrical Literacy: Unleash Your Style, offered the students a platform and opportunity to look in depth, identify and express their raw artistic dexterity.The students’ performance during the weeklong event was not only characterised by originality, ingenuity and vigour, it also featured young, passionate and emotional voices decrying events in the society.

Through their songs, raps, poetry and short story write-ups, they showcased their individual and collective talents to the amazement of the audience.
A poet, Sage Hassan, who also thrilled the students with his performance, commended the school for giving the children a good platform to express and display their inbuilt talents.

He described the students’ poetic performance as extremely captivating, adding, “poetry does a lot in the life of an individual. It helps you face your fears, it is a distillation of your emotions, and the things that people are thinking about but cannot express it. What you see in every single poet is like the emotions of a hundred people in one performance. It allows you express deep emotions, captured emotion of a situation in your country. If you see a society that doesn’t have that kind of art, it is a real problem.”

However, Principal of the school, Dr. England Adams, who launched the anthology, said to be the fourth in the series and published by The Guardian Newspaper, remarked that the school is developing its own voice by allowing the kids to explore, express and display their creativities.He said the school is committed to “providing a high quality, value added education using the National Curriculum of England in a flexible, creative and challenging way matching the Student’s needs and abilities.”

Head of Library Services and convener of the programme, Okechukwu Alozie, said the event is about celebrating the culture of reading among pupils. “We want to change the narrative that if you want to hide something for an African man, put it in a book. Through this programme we are stimulating the interest of our pupils in reading and letting them know that an avid reader conquers the world.

“Information is power, and you can only be knowledgeable about everything by reading. When children read and write coherently, they will be literally informed and you have so many things at your disposal. We invited both local and foreign authors to come and inspire the students; we also invited poets, writers and other artists. They spent quality time with our students and they mentored them.

He continued, “The anthology we just launched was published by The Guardian Newspaper, free of charge. They have done so great. It is an anthology of stories and poems written by our creative and innovative minds… our students. They were chosen out of the so many others that were submitted. We do this yearly, and this the fourth instalment.”