The ex­pres­sive voic­es of stu­dents from Ma­yaro Sec­ondary School led them to their third suc­ces­sive vic­to­ry in the se­nior di­vi­sion of the 2010 BPTT Ma­yaro/Guayagua­yare Schools Choral-Speak­ing Com­pe­ti­tion, held at the Ma­yaro Re­source Cen­tre on No­vem­ber 11. This is the third straight year of the com­pe­ti­tion, which is or­gan­ised by the Ma­yaro Lit­er­a­cy Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee (MLIC). Aman­da Vin­cent, a fifth form stu­dent and part of Ma­yaro Sec­ondary's su­perla­tive ef­fort, put the com­pe­ti­tion in per­spec­tive. "It feels great to win, but be­yond that, be­ing a part of this dri­ve to in­crease aware­ness and lit­er­a­cy in our com­mu­ni­ty is even more im­por­tant. I think that this com­pe­ti­tion is mak­ing a re­al dif­fer­ence and that is some­thing to be proud of," she said.

The com­pe­ti­tion com­pris­es per­for­mances by pre-school, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools stu­dents. And while the pre-school per­for­mances are not judged, the high­er di­vi­sions per­form set pieces for a pan­el of judges. For this year's edi­tion, the pri­ma­ry schools per­formed the Mys­tery Band by the late Lord Kitch­en­er, while sec­ondary stu­dents per­formed the time­less ca­lyp­so, Progress, by King Austin. Man­ag­er, Cor­po­rate Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty at BPTT, Ron­da Fran­cis, who for­mal­ly opened the com­pe­ti­tion, in­spired the stu­dents. "We are com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing ed­u­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly through ac­tiv­i­ties like this com­pe­ti­tion, which shows that learn­ing can be fun and en­joy­able.

To­day, as we learn about his­to­ry and cul­ture by pay­ing homage to our great ca­lyp­so­ni­ans, I look for­ward to the day when the test pieces will be writ­ten by you." MLIC com­mit­tee mem­ber, Reynold Phillip, gave an overview of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. "This group was formed in 2005 through the col­lab­o­ra­tive vi­sion of BPTT, the Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (AL­TA), and var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers. Apart from our com­mu­ni­ty work, we de­cid­ed to col­lab­o­rate with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to de­vel­op this com­pe­ti­tion, and since 2007, the par­tic­i­pa­tion of these stu­dents has in­spired mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty to be­come in­volved in in­creas­ing lit­er­a­cy lev­els in the re­gion."

The ar­tic­u­late and ex­pres­sive per­for­mances by the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools im­pressed judges and au­di­ence alike. Af­ter all was said and done, Ma­yaro Sec­ondary were once again crowned cham­pi­ons, while first-timers Rio Claro East Sec­ondary gave a ster­ling per­for­mance to take the run­ner-up po­si­tion. Or­toire (St Joseph) RC was se­lect­ed as the top pri­ma­ry school as a re­sult of its well-ex­e­cut­ed per­for­mance of the chal­leng­ing Lord Kitch­en­er piece. They were fol­lowed close­ly by Ma­yaro/Guayagua­yare Com­mu­ni­ty School, and St Thomas RC, in sec­ond and third place re­spec­tive­ly.

Eleven-year old Krisel So­bion, of Or­toire (St. Joseph) RC, was over­joyed by his school's suc­cess. "This means so much be­cause we know that our teach­ers and par­ents re­al­ly be­lieved in us and we want­ed to make them proud. Tak­ing part has shown us that learn­ing can be a lot of fun. This com­pe­ti­tion got every­one in­volved in try­ing to make Ma­yaro the num­ber one com­mu­ni­ty in terms of lit­er­a­cy." Bring­ing the com­pe­ti­tion to a close, MLIC chair­per­son, Bar­bara Punch, thanked the stu­dents and teach­ers.