The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition |12 October 2015

 11-year-old wins Bronze Award

Alicia Bonnelame is the youngest ever student from the International School Seychelles to win an award in The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.

Alicia won a Bronze Award for her essay on ‘The advantages and disadvantages of being young’.

In fact, her father Patrick Bonnelame had said: “The judges are either going to love it or hate it.”

And the result showed that the judges “loved it”!

This is quite an accomplishment for someone of this age especially considering the fact that Alicia was only ten years old when she wrote her essay. 

She said the topic of her essay gave her the opportunity to share her experiences with a wide audience.

In her spare time, Alicia enjoys reading, writing and sleeping.

In the future she hopes to overcome her thalassophobia, which she explains is to have a fear of the sea while living on an island. 

Her parents hope she will learn how to bake without burning her house down!

Originally titled the ‘Commonwealth Essay’, the competition was renamed in honour of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s role as both head of the Commonwealth and patron of the Royal Commonwealth Society.

Three other students at the International School achieved silver and bronze awards: Toshani Khanna from Year 8 (standard form 2), Namita Kanan from Year 9 (Standard form 3) and Karen Doku from Year 13 (second year of A levels).

Namita, having been inspired by the subject of ‘I am the future’, wanted to share her views of the world around her and how she believes that the younger generation as a whole can have an impact on the future.

As she wrote in her essay, “We will strive towards Excellency. Our contributions to the world and the greater good shall remain shining in the future”.

She achieved a bronze award for her essay.

Namita, who has lived in India, Jamaica and Hong Kong, took it upon herself to understand the faith and belief of each of these cultures.

In school, Namita enjoys taking part in all subjects except for physical education.

Driven by the challenge, Toshani’s essay was awarded a silver certificate for ‘The advantages and disadvantages of being young’ which was a passionate plea to “treasure our young years”.

Her passion for reading acted as another motivating factor.

Apart from reading, Toshani’s hobbies are swimming and playing chess.

At seventeen years old, this is Karen’s third time competing and her second win. For both of her wins, Karen, who is Ghanaian but has lived most of her life in Seychelles, achieved a bronze award.

The young adolescent says that she is attracted by the essay topic which motivates her writing as she wants her voice to be heard across a wider audience.

In her essay, Karen wrote about our world and what she would like to see in her future.

Her previous essay was based on the topic of self-identity.

Congratulations to our four winners and wishing them continued success.

Contributed by Amy Jean (Year 12B)