“There are all kinds of courage.” Words by Pro­fes­sor Al­bus Dum­b­le­dore in Har­ry Pot­ter and the Philoso­pher’s Stone. Courage is the word, that comes to mind when one is asked to de­scribe this pas­sion­ate, am­bi­tious, tal­ent­ed 13-year-old writer, Ashi­ana Mo­hammed.

Mr. Rishi Ram­s­ingh, Stan­dard 5 teacher, El Do­ra­do North Hin­du School shares, “Her first act of courage was learn­ing to find her voice in Stan­dard Five and once she did, it was like watch­ing a flower blos­som. No chal­lenge be­came too great. She be­came an ad­mirable leader in Stan­dard Five and shep­herd­ed her peers in writ­ing along the way.”

“She then found a new chal­lenge and the courage to go glob­al – the Queen’s Com­mon­wealth Es­say com­pe­ti­tion. This took her away from her com­fort zone and in­to a new genre of writ­ing and her courage brought her gold!”

The Queen’s Com­mon­wealth Es­say Com­pe­ti­tion (QCEC) re­ceived a record-break­ing 26,322 en­tries in 2022 from every Com­mon­wealth re­gion. It is the world’s old­est in­ter­na­tion­al schools’ writ­ing con­test, es­tab­lished by the So­ci­ety in 1883.

Each year, en­trants write on a theme that ex­plores the Com­mon­wealth’s val­ues, fos­ter­ing an em­pa­thet­ic world view in the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers and en­cour­ag­ing young peo­ple to con­sid­er new per­spec­tives to the chal­lenges that the world faces. Themes have in­clud­ed the en­vi­ron­ment, com­mu­ni­ty, in­clu­sion, the role of youth lead­er­ship, and gen­der equal­i­ty.

Trinidad and To­ba­go cupped Gold, Sil­ver and Bronze awards at this 2022 com­pe­ti­tion, Ashi­ana be­ing one of the Gold Awardees in the Ju­nior Cat­e­go­ry.

Let’s Deep Dive with Ashi­ana Mo­hammed

“I have a myr­i­ad of ad­jec­tives crash­ing on the edges of my mind, each one fight­ing for a spot on the page. Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, I would pick Ambi­tious and Metic­u­lous. I chose am­bi­tious out the wave of words since it en­cap­su­lates my pure pas­sion for be­com­ing an au­thor. I would over­come any ob­sta­cle in my path­way to bring my­self clos­er to my gleam­ing goal. As for metic­u­lous, the ad­jec­tive is an in­sight in­to my writ­ing process. I dili­gent­ly scru­ti­nise my every line so I can cre­ate the sto­ry just as I see it in my mind. I give my sto­ry my whole-heart­ed ded­i­ca­tion and vi­sion as I write. The words are tru­ly facets of my per­son­al­i­ty.”

Her pas­sion­ate dance with lit­er­a­ture

Writ­ing is nev­er a task for this cre­ative ge­nius, who shares, “the words flow ef­fort­less­ly from my fin­ger­tips as I am dri­ven to com­plete a sto­ry. Whether I’m re­search­ing how my favourite au­thors de­vel­oped their plots, what new books are be­ing re­leased or even con­coct­ing my own sto­ry­lines, writ­ing is on my mind. Writ­ing brings me such bound­less plea­sure that leaps off the pages as I de­sign in­tri­cate plots and weave my sto­ries. I en­joy see­ing my thoughts play out on the page as I bring a sto­ry to life. I give every char­ac­ter my pre­cise at­ten­tion and metic­u­lous­ly cu­rate each and every word that I use. While writ­ing, it feels as if I’m breath­ing life in­to an­oth­er world, cre­at­ed from my fin­ger­tips. Each char­ac­ter in my sto­ry cap­tures a part of my per­son­al­i­ty adding emo­tion as they fight against my an­tag­o­nist. I find beau­ty in the re­ac­tion of read­ers and the emo­tion that my writ­ing ig­nites.”

“I have a fiery pas­sion for writ­ing. Flut­ter­ing along the cor­ri­dors of my mind are words, words I have col­lect­ed from the books I de­vour dai­ly and most of all my own words that form fan­tas­ti­cal im­agery that brings me such ful­fil­ment, when strung along a blank page to be­come a sto­ry. When the small em­bers of an idea tat­too it­self up­on my thoughts, it quick­ly erupts in­to a rag­ing fire and I am com­pelled to put pen to pa­per. I have been told that my sto­ries are like no oth­er and my style is very much one born from the myr­i­ad of au­thors and teach­ers that have in­flu­enced my writ­ing flair.”

“With each birth­day and Christ­mas wish, new books filled my shelves, adding to my grow­ing col­lec­tion. Each and every book, rang­ing for hor­ror to fan­ta­sy to clas­sics, holds a spe­cial place in my soul. I have gath­ered ti­tles such as Creep­over, Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia, Mer­lin, Nan­cy Drew, Aru Shah, Keep­er of the Lost Cities, Per­cy Jack­son and, of course, Har­ry Pot­ter.”

Plant­i­ng seeds of suc­cess with­in the dig­i­tal world

In Sep­tem­ber 2020, Ashi­ana and her class­mates en­tered the door­way of stan­dard five, with a teacher they hard­ly knew, in the midst of a glob­al pan­dem­ic. This vir­tu­al class­room be­came their aca­d­e­m­ic walls to which this cru­cial year of de­vel­op­ment plant­ed their seeds of suc­cess. They pre­pared for the SEA ex­am with­out step­ping foot in­to a phys­i­cal class­room un­til ex­am day.

Thrilling her stan­dard five class­mates with as­ton­ish­ing tales of folk­lore and fan­tas­ti­cal crea­tures, Ashi­ana Mo­hammed’s name be­came syn­ony­mous with cre­ative writ­ing at her pri­ma­ry school. It was there, at El Do­ra­do North Hin­du School, her teacher, Mr. Ram­s­ingh, sparked her in­trigue of sto­ry­telling in their on­line class­es. This de­vot­ed teacher was able to recog­nise her tal­ents and pushed her so she could tru­ly soar. Week af­ter week, she spun her tales on­line in dra­mat­ic nar­ra­tive flair to the de­light of her friends. Af­ter each sto­ry, the stu­dents would tell her that she should be­come an au­thor.

“My pas­sion for writ­ing was set aflame here in Stan­dard Five. My class­room was trapped in­side a mere com­put­er but there, in that dig­i­tal world, my gift was un­locked. It brought me un­con­tain­able joy to craft sto­ries, trig­gered by in­trigu­ing prompts. My sto­ries cir­cled around my beloved genre of hor­ror. I dis­cov­ered my thirst to tell sto­ries when I read my es­says to an au­di­ence. I al­ways felt a surge of joy to find the im­pact that my writ­ing brought to oth­ers. Un­doubt­ed­ly, my Stan­dard Five teacher Mr. Rishi Ram­s­ingh, un­veiled my pow­ers of writ­ing and wield­ing words. He in­spired so many of my ideas and I strived to make every es­say greater than the last.” Ashi­ana placed in the 99th per­centile in SEA 2021 and was award­ed Most Out­stand­ing Fe­male Stu­dent, earned the Cre­ative Writ­ing prize and was named class Vale­dic­to­ri­an.

En­ter­ing this aus­pi­cious com­pe­ti­tion

Achiev­ing her goal of en­ter­ing the halls of St. Au­gus­tine Girls’ High school(SAGHS), her moth­er’s al­ma mater, was an ab­solute dream come true. “Since start­ing SAGHS, I have de­vel­oped a love for for­eign lan­guages such as French and Span­ish bal­anced by my en­joy­ment of Sci­ence. I love Lit­er­a­ture and writ­ing po­et­ry in my spare time. I am al­so a mem­ber of the Lit­er­ary & De­bat­ing So­ci­ety at SAGHS.”

In April 2022, she re­ceived an email from the Dean about the Queen’s Com­mon­wealth Es­say Com­pe­ti­tion and knew that she could not pass up this amaz­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case her pas­sion for writ­ing. The Es­say Com­pe­ti­tion asked en­trants to ex­plore the pos­i­tive im­pact that can be achieved through ded­i­ca­tion and self­less com­mit­ment to our Com­mon­wealth.

Ashi­ana en­tered her sub­mis­sion in the Ju­nior Cat­e­go­ry en­ti­tled The King­dom of Cane in re­sponse to the prompt – ‘Imag­ine you are a grand­par­ent in 2022. Tell your grand­chil­dren a bed­time sto­ry about an in­spi­ra­tional per­son.’ “Im­me­di­ate­ly I knew that I want­ed to show­case Trinidad in the 1950’s in or­der to por­tray the in­spi­ra­tional im­pact of my East In­di­an her­itage and the in­den­tured labour­ers who paved a path­way for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.”

“My heart flut­tered as I opened the email ti­tled ‘QCEC Re­sult’, my eyes fell up­on the words ‘Gold Award 2022’. In that mo­ment, I felt ful­filled as a writer! Such a pres­ti­gious com­pe­ti­tion had giv­en me my first in­ter­na­tion­al award. The pow­er of my words had been recog­nised and that brought me in­cred­i­ble ec­sta­sy!

Chart­ing her des­tiny

Win­ning a Gold Award in the Queen’s Com­mon­wealth Es­say Com­pe­ti­tion brought Ashi­ana one step clos­er on her path of be­com­ing a pub­lished au­thor. One of her deep­est de­sires is to at­tend Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty’s es­teemed writ­ing pro­gram. “As an avid read­er, a pas­sion­ate po­et and a whim­si­cal writer, I see a clear path shin­ing be­fore me. The job that would bring me im­mea­sur­able sat­is­fac­tion is that of a nov­el­ist, a pub­lished au­thor and a cel­e­brat­ed writer. It would present the grand op­por­tu­ni­ty to build a ca­reer out of my pas­sion, my true call­ing.”

“Like the au­thors that have added their spark to my writ­ing, I too would en­joy the sight of my very own books, crisply print­ed and beau­ti­ful­ly il­lus­trat­ed sit­ting atop book­shelves. It would bring me un­con­tain­able ec­sta­sy to write a hor­ror se­ries and have my books pub­lished by a renowned agency as well as trans­lat­ed in for­eign lan­guages so read­ers of var­i­ous cul­tures can all share the love of lit­er­a­ture.”

“I would cer­tain­ly wish that my nov­els can in­spire oth­er as­pir­ing au­thors to find their voic­es as so many books have done for me. Once my books have found a place in read­ers’ hands and hearts, then I would know that I have achieved my goal. One of my deep­est de­sires is to be part of a world filled with read­ers.”

Ashi­ana’s pas­sion ex­tends to de­vel­op­ing the minds of our young lead­ers. “Some chil­dren nev­er gain the chance to read and there­fore can­not find the su­prema­cy of their own voic­es. If every child was giv­en a book, new op­por­tu­ni­ties will arise for each and every one of them.”