Education

Coach advises parents to help children become better writers

By Ezurike Ugochukwu

The Executive Director of Writers Hub Academy, Mrs Mary Oladepo (a.k.a Mary.O), has called on parents and teachers to help their wards develop hidden talents and become better writers.

Oladepo spoke on the sidelines of the graduation ceremony of four students of the academy in Lagos, reiterating that the academy is in the business of discovering writing talents in students and coaches them to become authors.

The academy has a vision of raising and impacting young writers globally.

Oladepo said that the academy was founded to bring out hidden talents in children, to encourage and support them to write.

According to her, the hub organises three months intensive coaching lessons to discovered talents and motivates them to bring out their best.

She said that the academy, which was established in 2020, had so far raised 12 authors.

She said that the task of talent hunting was thorough and tedious as some of the children were also drawn from the streets.

The writing coach said that it was easier to search from students of private schools because of less bureaucratic procedures unlike their counterparts in public schools.

On challenges faced by the academy in hunting for talents, Oladepo said that finance was a major challenge.

She said that she had to transport herself to the school ground where the children assembled for the coaching.

According to her, 10 students actually qualified in the last batch, but only the books written by four of them are published.

She said that four of the students were able to publish their works because they got support from their parents.

” It was impossible to publish the works of the rest six because their parents could not afford the cost of the publication.

” We had 10 fantastic writers at the end of the coaching lessons but only the works of four was published because their parents were capable to sponsor the publications.

” Each of the publications cost N170, 000 to publish.

” The four published works have their e-books ready for publication on Amazon,” Oladepo said.

The writing coach said that the academy was looking for sponsorship to have a befitting office to train more upcoming writers.

The 2022 graduands of the academy included Fedora Anaba, Emmanuella Amakor, Bamisaye Joshua and Ademikanlu Shikemi.

They are all students of National College Gbagada.

Bamisaye published “The African drummer boy,” Fedora published “My identity,” Emmanuella, “The Queen’s Letter,” while Shikemi published “The ABC’s of Life.”