Promoting reading culture
Claim Limited is celebrating 25 years of existence. The institution is a retailer book store with over 10 outlets across the country. As part of the celebrations, Claim has introduced a story writing competition for secondary school students. It will also hold a major celebrations in Blantyre next month. Kondwani Kamiyala caught up with Claim Limited general manager Andrew Chisamba for more.
Q
: This year 2018, Claim Limited will be celebrating its silver jubilee as a publisher in Malawi. What can you outline as some of the achievements over the years?
A
: Since it was established in 1968, Claim Limited has opened 13 bookshops. We have been a leading retailer of Christian and academic books. We have published 153 textbooks that are approved by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology for use in secondary schools. We thank God for these 50 years of publishing and distributing quality literature to the Christian community as well as the public at large.
Q
: How will the celebrations go?
A
: We also seek to use this time to recognise retired managers and staff for their contribution to Claim to what it is today. We plan that on April 28, 2018, the day for the anniversary celebrations, we will have a parade from our headquarters to Comesa Hall, the venue for the main celebrations. We will have a service of worship followed by music by Patience Namadingo and poetry. In the run up to that, we have a writing competition for secondary students which is running from February 2 to March 31.
Q
: What is the competition all about?
A
: Basically, we are more concerned in publishing Christian and academic literature in our time of existence. As part of engaging stakeholders and the general public in this, we decided that we should hold this particular competition, specifically for the schools and particulary for the students. The major idea is to celebrate with them. We have established that there is a challenge in the reading culture in Malawi. That reading culture is not to do with the books students read in preparations for the examinations but we don’t have much of general literature, books that are there for reading for pleasure. We thought that if we could engage students to write short stories and nthano, eventually that will bring a pool of reading material which can be used to enhance our reading culture. We all know that the youth are our hope for a better future. Reading is an intergral part of their academic and intellectual development.
Q
: Why the four categories?
A
: We have considered that at secondary school we have two levels; the junior and senior levels. We thought it would be unfair to let them compete at the same level. So we have categorised the competition in English and Chichewa. We have Form One and Form two competing on their own and Form Three and Form Four competing at another level in both languages.
Q
: What are the prizes for each category?
A
: The first prize for the winning story in each level is K100 000 cash for the student in Chichewa and English and K100 000 worth of secondary school curriculum books for their school library. Second prize at each level is K50 000 cash and K50 000 Arise and Shine books for their library while the third prize is K25 000 cash and K25 000 worth of Arise and Shine books we publish.
Q
: What is the criteria like?
A
: Students are supposed to submit entries to their head teachers who will in turn choose the best four stories and nthano and send for the competition. The topic for the nthano is Ngati Kumaloto while the short story in English should end with the students discovering that reading is very useful to their future. The nthano for junior level students should be 150 to 250 words, while for the senior level is between 350 and 500 words. All entries must be signed and stamped as unstamped entries will be disqualified. Winners for the competition will be announced by April 20 while awards will be given at the 50th anniversary celebrations.
Q
: Is the competition a once off thing?
A
: Not at all. We want to continue hosting it and we thank our partnership with the Ministry of Education in all this. n
