The Feature Writing Competition with the theme ‘Sustainable Solutions to tackling Climate Change in Developing Countries’ kicked off in February 2016.
Interested participants were required to highlight impact of business activities on climate issues and proffer sustainable business practices that can improve the environment leveraging some of Oando Marketing PLC’s business initiatives.
The writing competition which was designed to encourage the development of literary skills, enhance human capital development and entrench a reading culture in the bourgeoning youthful population in Nigeria, was open to all Oando Marketing PLC’s social media followers. The reward for the winner is a N400, 000 cash prize and the publishing of the winning article in national newspapers.
The winner, Dr Adeyeye Adetola Rachael, a medical personnel who saw details of the competition on Oando Marketing’s Facebook page described reading and writing as a hobby and further emphasized that apart from her profession, writing has always been an activity she enjoys, hence her willingness to participate without hesitations despite her busy schedule.
Commenting on the selection process, Seun Adeosun, the head of Marketing Communications, Oando Marketing Plc. said “all the articles went through a rigorous and unbiased process before the winning article emerged. The success criteria as communicated while the competition lasted included thoroughness of research, quality of analysis and argument, grammar, logical arrangement of thought, and innovative input of existing Oando environmentally-friendly business initiatives adopted in each article”
The feature article writing competition is one of such initiatives adopted by Oando Marketing Plc. to support the Africa Skills Initiative development as promoted by the World Economic Forum. The Teens Can Cook Initiative and the Oleum Academy where mechanics are trained to improve their mechatronics skills and competencies are amongst other successful programmes Oando Marketing PLC has instituted.
Recently, Mr. Abayomi Awobokun, the CEO of Oando Downstream, Abayomi Awobokun was honoured as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum due to his commitment to shaping a better future and improving the state of the world by creating bold, brave and action-oriented programmes to support the WEF Africa Skills and Economic Development Initiative.
One of the central points of this Africa Skills initiative is to accelerate economic growth by improving the literacy levels in the bourgeoning youthful population whilst helping organisations to tackle recurring difficulties encountered in finding talent to fill vacant positions – a situation indicative of the growing mismatch between available and needed skills.
Speaking on the competition, Mr. Awobokun said “the Nigerian educational sector is in need of a revamp and pointing fingers is not the solution. Everyone has a role to play, competitions like this motivate individuals’ especially young adults to develop their writing skills. The quality of intellectual conversations is on the decline; libraries lack patronage because the statistics for people that read are so low. We recognize that such issues are one of our responsibilities, and we are hopeful to see the growth in terms of literacy and a rise in the academic abilities and the employability of our young adults.”
