adminNkosilesisa Ncube, Sunday Life Reporter
A TOTAL of five Bulawayo schools converged at Bulawayo theatre last weekend in attendance of the Massive Merge of the Giants talent search competition.
The competition was for primary school pupils around the city who competed in six different disciplines; singing, dancing, modelling, lip-syncing, poetry and presenting.
The poetry section brought to light many issues affecting ordinary people around the city such as traffic safety, deforestation and gender imbalances.
Gospel music was most popular in the singing discipline but the singing show was stolen by a pint-sized superstar who performed Jah Prayzah’s Tinaye Muno.
In the modelling category, the children were urged to dress in traditional African attire so as to make them appreciate their natural selves.
In total, 130 children participated in the respective disciplines, with some taking part in more than one division of the competition.
Judges for the search were actress, poet and singer Lady Tshawe, rapper Cal_Vin, model Derrick and motivational speaker Shakes.
The judges picked the four outstanding acts in each category and these were awarded hampers which contained educational material.
The search was put together by Fearfully and Wonderfully Created (FWC), an association affiliated to the National Arts Council.
FWC co-founder Tashinga Mpofu said the show was to help children develop their talents from a tender age.
“Our aim is to mould the children from a young age by boosting their self-esteem through confidence grooming activities like dancing and singing with the aim of training children to be brave, fearless and confident at grassroot level.
“We have been working with primary level schools around the country. We first host the confidence grooming fun-filled educative shows at the schools then annually merge the schools to compete against each other.
“We give hampers in each competition so as to motivate the children to compete with an expectation of receiving a price yet emphasising that it’s not about winning but experiencing, learning and growing our young generation’s self esteem,” Mpofu said.
In spite of having only a few winners, Mpofu confirmed that all the children who participated in the show will be advancing to the next round of the show.
“All the children will be moving on with the program because we don’t want to select or separate them according to their titles since we aim above all else to build them.
“We will move them all through their competitions. We are looking forward to actually connecting each child to their real dream, perhaps giving the models modelling contracts or giving the singers recording deals,” Mpofu said.
Subsequent rounds will be held in Bulawayo and Harare and the closest approaching is the Miss Bulawayo Junior beauty pageant which is coming soon.
@nkocykay
Online Reporter