Well done, young writers of Samoa!

It is indeed a great pleasure to have been asked to speak on the occasion of the 2014 Writing Competition Prize Giving Programme, and I’m delighted to be here. .

I want to thank Samoa Observer for their vision which gave birth to a writing competition that is gaining more and more interest and support from schools around the country since its inception in 2011. With 150 entries in 2011 to 770 in 2014 it is quite a remarkable achievemen.

This tells me that the desire for writing has always been there in our students but somewhere somehow we as educators have failed to realise.

But then again we don’t know everything, and that is why this writing competition is so critically important to the efforts made by the Ministry and private institutions to improve the level of writing and reading skills of our students in both Samoan and English, which I’m sure will also greatly improve their overall academic performance.

As Minister for Education I applaud the Samoa Observer’s initiative.

Another outstanding product of this competition is the creation of partnerships which will help sustain this effort into the future for the benefit of the young people of our country.

Partnerships for improved education is a common theme in global education at the moment because education systems today are far more complex than they were a quarter of a century ago. To this end I want to say thank you to all the sponsors.

I absolutely agree with the notion that many of these stories could be published and used in our schools and I will see to it that this is done because as Marj Moore relayed to me in an email” these stories are written by us, about us.” The truth is we just don’t have enough local material to support our curriculum let alone books for pleasure reading.

My ministry has offered to provide funding for the publication of some of your stories.

I’m fascinated by people who write and I often ask myself “ what is it that makes people want to write;

Why would anyone want to write when there are hundreds of other more exciting things to do?” In my search to try and get into the minds of those who write, I came across some interesting responses to the question I’m posing:

Sir Ken Robinson has this to say, 1. I write to be fully alive. Writing draws me into the moment where my senses are operating at their peak and when I’m resonating with the excitement of this thing I am experiencing, I am fully alive.

2. I write to make a name for myself. George Orwell says “we write out of the desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death. It would be nice to live forever, but if you can’t live forever physically, then why can’t your memory live forever? We still talk about Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, George Elliot and many others, long after their deaths. It seems a selfish motivation but it’s certainly natural.

3. “We write to change the world” says Joseph Bunting. Today’s world is dominated by consumerism. We eat more, we listen to more music, and we consume more information.

But consumerism won’t make us happy. Writing gives us a chance to turn the tides on consumerism.

Instead of consuming more, we can make something, to bring new things into life. Humans have an innate gift to make new things. We write not just to change the world but to create a new world.

4. We write to discover meaning. In the book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning” Psychiatrist Victor Frank posited that the main search of mankind is not happiness or pleasure, but meaning” Life is never made unbearable by circumstances but only by lack of meaning and purpose. We write to bring meaning to the world.

And so this morning, as budding writers I’m sure you are beginning to resonate with what I have just said and in due time you will be able to sit back and say” Yes, I’m alive, I’m fully alive because I have experienced the moments, ordinary moments. Yes, I’ve made a name for myself and my memory will live forever. Yes, I’ve helped change Samoa and the world because I’ve been able to explore and bring new things into life. And, Yes, I’m the happiest person on earth because through my writing I have found meaning and purpose not only for myself but for others as well.

This morning we are gathered to celebrate your achievement as writers.

My compliment to all of you who have made the effort to submit your stories, and I congratulate those of you who are about to be declared winners of 2014. To those of you who didn’t make the prize category, e iai upu a le atunuu e faapea “o le aso ma le filiga o le aso foi ma le mataigatila.”

Loosely translated ‘today is your day, tomorrow is mine.’ Keep writing.

Thank you, Soifua