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Tafadzwa Chibukwa, Chronicle Reporter

MZILIKAZI High School is this year’s winner of the Bulawayo Public Speaking competition.
The event was hosted last Friday at the Zimbabwe Academy of Music by the Rotary Club of Bulawayo South and featured 12 schools.

A total of 34 schools participated in the first rounds of the competition and 12 made it to the finals.
Sharnede Banda, an Upper Six pupil at Mzilikazi High School came tops beating Priscillah Sithole from Nkulumane High School and Charmaine Shava from St James High into second and third place.

Her winning speech was titled “The power of the tongue” while St James speech was: “Coming home” and Nkulumane high schools’ speech was; “Are friends for life or right now.”

Rotary Public Speaking Winners

Sharnede walked away with a shield, US$300 and US$100 shopping voucher.
Schools that participated in the finals were Girls College, St Columba’s, Green Gables, Townsend and Dominican Convent High schools.

Sharnede could not hold her excitement when she was named the winner. Speaking after the competition, she said she was delighted to have won the competition, something she had not foreseen.

“I am quite ecstatic over my victory. This is something I had not expected given the stiff competition. I believed that I would make it but I was not expecting first place,” said Sharnede.

She said when she wrote her presentation, she made sure it was something that would stand out and catch the attention of the audience.

Sharnede said she invested her time in research and conducted interviews to find out what people thought.
Sharnede said she chose the topic “the power of the tongue” in order to highlight the power of words spoken by the people.

“Most problems that we face as a people start from the words that we speak. My topic was based on educating the audience on the power of our words,” she said.

President of the Rotary Club Bulawayo South District, Mr Jacob Nyathi said this year’s competition was very stiff because the competitors had prepared well.

“I was impressed by the use of language and anecdotes in the speeches. This shows that the contestants prepared well for the competition,” he said. Mr Nyathi said being a Rotarian meant pursuing service before self and they wanted to instil that into the young generation.

He encouraged schools to groom pupils to be leaders of tomorrow through interact clubs.