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Sharon Buwerimwe, Chronicle Reporter

DOMINICAN Convent High School is this year’s winner of the Bulawayo Public Speaking competition.

The event was hosted last Friday at Bulawayo Theatre by the Rotary Club of Bulawayo South and featured 10 schools.

A total of 34 schools participated in the first rounds of the competition and 10 made it to the finals.

Nokubonga Majenda, a form four pupil at Dominican Convent High School shrugged off stiff competition from nine other pupils to beat Tamia Melissa Ncube from Mtshabezi High school and Thabiso Beauty Pahla from Denmark Training service into second and third place respectively.

Her winning speech was entitled, “Home alone”, while Melissa’s speech was entitled, “Colour affects the way people feel”.

Pahla’s speech was entitled, “If your dreams aren’t big enough”.

Nokubonga walked away with a shield, $200 and a $100 voucher from Edgars.

Schools that took part in the final were Usher, St Columba’s, Cyrene, Mpopoma, Entumbane, Christian Brothers College and Herentals Colleges.

Nokubonga said the tough competition from other contestants spurred her to greater heights. 

“The competition was stiff as there were brilliant speeches that were presented by other contestants but I managed to win,” she said with tears of joy.

President of the Rotary Club Bulawayo South District 9210 Mr Everson Ndlovu said the competition was organised to promote communication skills and build confidence.

“We want to build confidence and leadership skills in our students. We want to make this event the talk of town so that pupils benefit from participating in such events,” he said.

Mr Ndlovu said being a Rotarian meant pursuing service before self and they wanted to instil that into the young generation.

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

—@sharonbuwe