Shining Star Group Of Schools, Abuja has emerged the first place winner of the 2021 EducationUSA Annual Martin Luther King Performing Arts Contest.
The school beat over 50 others in a competition organized annually by the EducationUSA to mark the Black History Month.
This year, contesting schools were tasked to use drama or poetry to represent the major content of Martin Luther King’s speech.
The students of Shining Star Group Of Schools chose drama as a veritable medium of expression and within the time allotted to them, the 23-man cast re-enacted the speech intelligently to the delight of the organizers.
The beauty of their presentation hinged on the ability to domicile their performance within Nigeria’s socio-political and economic space.
According to the Director of Administration, Ofe Imomoh, the idea was to see Martin Luther King from the perspective of a human rights activist that he was and linked his speech to the prevailing socio-political and economic situations in Nigeria.
This, she said, was in line with the yearnings of the younger generations of Nigerians.
Directed by one of the teachers, Christiana Adebayo, the students highlighted several themes including those of drug trafficking, corruption, gender inequality, insecurity, sexual abuse in tertiary institutions and hate speech as they affect the Nigerian society.
They also used that same stage to register their dissatisfaction with the manner Nigerian government handled the #EndSARS protest that almost rocked the nation in October 2020.
Their message was wrapped in the undiluted hope that just like King’s dream turned reality, there shall come a time in Nigeria where nepotism, drug abuse, favouritism, corruption and other forms of socio-political vices will be things of the past.
“It was a wonderful opportunity for our students to showcase their talents. They did very well in interpreting the Speech.
We were meant to understand that no school came close to us in what we did and we were very excited seeing the delegation from the Embassy in the school to present us with the award and gifts.
The teachers that participated in directing and coordination of the drama as well as students that participated were presented with gifts.
We are very good at giving students opportunity to develop their talents. This has encouraged them and led to the several awards won so far.”
For the COVID-19 pandemic, the contest would have held at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, but students were instructed to upload their entries on Youtube platform.
The school has always distinguished itself in competitions, leading to several awards. Some of the victories it has recorded over the years include, the 774 Young Nigerian Scientist Presidential Awards; 14th Toyota Dream Car Art contest (12 to 15 years category); Top 10 Finalist (National), Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Poster Competition organised by Ducit Blue Foundation; 13th Toyota Dream Car Art contest (8 to 11years Category) and the Best School Award (State): JETS Quiz Competition for schools in FCT organised by the FCT Universal Basic Education Board.
