YOUTH RISING INTERNATIONAL WRITING INSTITUTE
Challenge Information
Overview
Youth Rising Writing Institute is a program of Youth Rising International that seeks to empower young people in Uganda to express their views through writing. The program focuses on putting views, ideals and opinions of young people at the forefront through writing challenges.
In this age of social media where information sharing has been reduced to 2 lines of tweet, the institute also aims at sharpening young people’s writing skills by subjecting them to descriptive, exploratory and creative writing challenges.
We therefore believe the competition will bring out the ability within students to think quickly, write persuasively and present well-connected ideas while presenting well-connected ideas in a compact fashion.
The ultimate goal is to spark “critical thinking” and build the next generation of leaders that write with brevity, creativity, language, and unique personal style.
The writing challenges are open to Ugandan aspiring writers who are between aged 12–23 years, or in grades Primary 5 – Primary 7, Senior one to Senior Six, or University students. Each challenge is open for a specific period of time that the writer can use to gather their thoughts, write and submit a 500 word essay. We encourage primary and high school students to work with their teachers and integrate writing challenges into their daily teaching schedules.
Youth Rising International is a non-profit organization that focuses on powering community transformation through creative youth leadership. All our programs are for the youth by the youth and include Books on Bikes, Youth Rising Sports, PIVOT and the Writing Institute.
Awards
National Winner (1)
- UGX 50,000
- Essay Published in national News Paper
- Social Media mentions
Honorable Mentions (2)
There will be 2 honorable mentions and each will receive up to 25,000 UGX cash prizes, The essays will be published on our website and social media channels.
Annual All Challenges Winner
Every December, we award the National All Challenges Winner with a Tablet. To qualify for the annual award, you must have participated in at least 6 challenges and. The Writing Institute picks 5 top essays from the year and submits them to the judges who choose the essay of the year.
The winning essay takes the Annual All Challenges prize and his/her essay is published on social media and national newspapers.
Annual Literary Magazine
The Annual Literary Magazine is a collection of the top 200 essays of the year. These are collected from each challenge and published in December. This is another great opportunity to have your writings featured.
Topics
Youth Rising Writing Institute formulates its essays questions mostly around national and world issues. Essay challenges are designed focus to highlight and celebrate such issues on international days of observation. We also organize special challenges that may fall out of our regular calendar. Such challenges are sponsored by different partners.
Topic Categories
- Business and Entrepreneurship
- Environment and Climate Change
- Health and Wellness (COVID-19, HIV/AIDS), Malaria, SRHR, NTDs, etc.)
- History and Politics
- Human Rights
- Social Issues (WASH, Education, Youth Development)
- STEM
Rules
- Entrants can enter in any challenge but can only submit one entry per challenge.
- Essays must be submitted through the official PDF form following clear steps posted on each challenge page.
- All submissions must be received before the deadline stated for each challenge.
- All communication with the entrant will be by email. It is the responsibility of the entrant to check their email address in order to receive further communications from Youth Rising Writing Institute
- Each essay must be written and submitted by a single author being the student without any co-authorship from another individual.
WRITING INSTITUTE
Judges
Youth Rising Writing Institute engages a panel of over 20 judges from different career sectors. The judges are passionate about writing as a smart soft skill that every young Ugandan must have,
DO YOU WANT TO BE A
Youth Rising Writing Institute Judge?
Join our growing community of judges and help us discover the next Shakespeare. We recruit judges all year round and they voluntarily spend not more than 5 hours of their time every month reading 10-20 one-page essays. That is all the commitment we ask for. Nothing else. Now if you are the one, fill out the form below and we will get back to you with the next steps.
Judge Registration Form
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”