CHARLESTOWN, Nevis – AS part as their Fourth Annual Youth Quake celebrations, the Gingerland Wesleyan Holiness Church held the Inter-Church Brandson Lanns Spelling Bee and the David Butler Speech Competition Wednesday night (July 15) at the church in Gingerland.
Emerging victorious in the Speech Competition was Zakiya Thompson of the Fenton Hill Church of God, while winning the Spelling Bee were Karimah Hill and Akianna Skelton of the host church. Hill was also named Best Speller.
Along with the winners, Charlestown Wesleyan Holiness and Butlers Wesleyan Holiness also participated in the Bank of Nevis (BON) and HOPE Nevis-sponsored competitions.
Bank of Nevis awarded Junior Accounts with a starting balance of $100 to the winners, who also collected monetary awards and trophies.
President of the Gingerland Wesleyan Holiness Church Youth Ron Daniel said that the idea behind the competitions was to mix religion with academics while increasing competencies in public speaking and spelling, which are two arts that young people need to work on. He said that in this day and age the church could not afford to “not know how to spell and how to speak” and that the competitions would help to change the perception that church people should only know about God.
The Marketing Officer of BON, Bronte Swanston-Hendrickson, said the institution was pleased to be associated with the competitions for the past four years. She opined that the competitions would help the participants to develop their spelling and speaking abilities, and commended the organisers for their foresight. She also said the BON has had a long history of sponsoring youth activity and is always ready to walk hand in hand with any community or church-based organisation that runs these sorts of favourable programmes.
Vice-President of HOPE Nevis, Vincia Herbert said the organisation is always eager to form partnerships for the collective good of the island’s youth, and so when it was approached for assistance it immediately agreed.
