PlayHows Multimedia and Hospitality Services (PMHS), a media content production and hospitality services provision company has launched a story writing competition in Accra recently for Children during the 2020 Christmas season.

The Competition dubbed The ACE Annual Children's Christmas In Ghana Story Writing Competition aims to encourage children to take interest in creative writing and use it as an identity tool to control their own narrative.

Esi Arhin who initiated the competition is a mother of five and is constantly in search of stories for her children finds that there are so little homegrown stories for children.

During a recent audio production of Christmas stories for children, she discovered that although the celebration of Christmas is part of Ghanaian culture, all the stories she read and heard as a child are foreign.

She does not know of any traditional Ghanaian Christmas stories. She finds, there is the need for Ghanaian children to document their own experiences and perceptions of Christmas in this context and share among their peers.

Ms Arhim was thus inspired to establish the “The ACE Annual Children's Christmas In Ghana Story Writing Competition” to help achieve the objective of generating Ghanaian content by Ghanaian Children for Ghanaian children.

Professor Frederick Ato Armah, a lecturer at the university Cape Coast who is the Patron to the competition congratulated Ms Arhin on the initiative, He called it ' Great and thought provoking."

He added "Children are very imaginative and the earlier we engage them to process their thoughts the better for society. Encouraging them to write affords us the opportunity to get a glimpse of their world and perspectives.

Creative writing helps unleash the creative minds of children and potential to engage society in a more culturally responsive and context-specific manner. Mmo na edwuma pa."

The competition has established special prizes in name of the Patron, Frederick Ato Armah and WO1 Rtd. Raphael Kwame Barwuah who support and inspire the institution of the competition.

They are namely, the Frederick Ato Armah Special Prize for outstanding imagination and the Ahuntahunu Special Prize for best research.

The first edition of the competition begins this year, December 2020. The competition opens on 17th December 2020 and closes on 20th December 2020. It is opened to children from ages 10 to 15. Selection of winners would take place from the 21st to 23rd December. Announcement of Winners of the competition would be on 24th December.

Candidates are expected to send in their entries of between 500 and 800 words, not more.

All entries are to be sent by email to christmasingh@playhows.vip by the end of the deadline.

The panel of judges for the competition include Nana Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng, former President of Ghana Association of Writers (GAW); Kwadjo Barwuah, CTO of  KodeIT; Akofa Edjeani, - President, Women in Film and Television (WIFT Gh); Baaba Lindsay - Educator and Joyce Asiedu an educator among a few other personalities of note.

The first three winners of the competition will receive cash prizes of Gold- 1000, Silver-700 and Bronze 300 Ghana cedis respectively.

The stories of the first three winners of the competition will be published.