Nigeria’s representatives will be taking part in the Intercontinental Spelling Bee competition taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from September 24 to 30, courtesy of the Peat Phillips Foundation.
PPF is one of the non-governmental organizations that have been contributing and impacting society through uplifting of education and foundational processes of children.
Peat Philips Foundation is the organizer of the Spelling Bee in Nigeria, and the current edition is the eighth season of the annual educational competition being organized by the Foundation.
Nigeria’s representatives at this year’s edition of the competition are adolescents, ranging from 12 to 15 years, who qualified from local competitions from schools across all regions of the country.
The Nigerian qualifiers were currently in Dubai, after rigorous camping and training at the DeMeros Hotels, towards their preparation for the stiff competition.
The head of the organizers, Akin Olu-Phillips, congratulated all the competitors in respect of their anticipated victories for the Intercontinental Spelling Bee.
Speaking from their Dubai camp, Olu-Phillips said, “The children were in high spirit and ready to make Nigeria proud in Dubai. We currently own the franchise for the Intercontinental Spelling Bee competition and we made the first trip to Dubai in 2019. That was when we had the second edition of the competition. We went with two children and they performed and did their best; but for this year’s edition we were able to go with more children, eight in all, who will participate in all the three categories of the competition, viz: categories 4, 5 and 6 which fall among the junior, lower and upper primary and secondary schools.
“This year, Nigeria will be featuring in two major categories 5 and 6, which are the junior and senior secondary schools.
“In our last outing in Dubai, the challenges before this edition were that the children were not fully prepared, due to paucity of funds. In fact, in the past years, we were travelling to the US, just to witness the competition, but now we are fully ready to compete and do better and even best this time around.”
He, however, sought support to pay for the children’s registration in Dubai. According to him, the cost will cater for the feeding, accommodation and other sundry expenses of participants during their stay.
Olu-Phillips acknowledged the support of Hon. Fateema Aduke Mohammed, who he said gave the spellers a boost during their camping when she made a surprise visit to them to motivate and encourage them to do excellently well at the Spelling Bee Olympiad in Dubai.
He gave the names of the ‘scholarship spellers’ representing Nigeria as: Avar Dooshima Dorcas, Princess Adeja from International School Gboko, Benue State; David Audu Utennami, Nanret Adamu and Bentinen Anita Yiltok from St. Augustine College, Du Jo’s Plateau State.
Others are Oni Inioluwa Daniel, Olujobi Oluwadarasimi Opeyemi, Anino-Oritshe Esezobor, representing Ambassadors College, Ota, Ogun State; Utibeabasi Okpokowuruk from El-an Nexus Academy, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and Matt-Etika Pearl Koshi, from Eni Memorial High School, Calabar, Cross River State.