The organizers of Bayelsa Spelling Bee says their core mission is to create a platform for young people to excel, educationally and otherwise.
The organisers said this as winners emerged from the 12th edition of the competition on Thursday.
The competition which was held at Davem Mini Hub and Children Music School in Yenagoa had winners going home with cash prizes of N300,000, 100,000, and 50,000 for first, second and third positions, respectively.
The competitors who missed the top prizes got other consolation prizes.

The event had Superior Ufoma of Jade British International School securing the first position, while Elora Mene of Jade British International School came second.
Owei Tamaratonye from Ayakpo Comprehensive College came third, Daniel Okara also from New Total Child took the fourth position and Karina Ebi, equally took fourth position.

The Convener, Dr Ebidenyefa Tarila-Nikade, said that their core mission is to create a platform for people to express themselves particularly young people, because “We believe in every uniqueness of every individual.
“So we create that opportunity for them to discover themselves, our platform is a platform that is used to discover champions.

“We take pride in growing champions and then in addition what the competition does in the life of every participant even spectators are likely instilled with confidence.
“It sharpens their ideas, improves their literary competence, especially written communication, they learn how to spell words correctly and they also learn the correct pronunciation of words.

“We use the standardized dictionary for pronunciation which is the Daniel Jones dictionary and it is an opportunity to also present it to teachers and schools the proper way to teach diction pronunciation and not ascent,” she said.

She said that her motivation is to help young people develop interest in events that are educationally advancing events that will double charge their intellect, give them opportunities to discover their inner powers.
According to her: “The real identity and that either you win or not, it instils the spirit of sportsmanship, they will develop that concept that if I don’t win today does not make me a loser but courageous,”.

On her part, the winner Superior Ufoma, commended the organisers and sponsors for the opportunity offered to them as students to express themselves through spelling.
She urged those that didn’t make it to work harder, as they will surely become winners someday if they keep improving.