The Executive Director of Writers Hub Academy, Mrs Mary Oladepo (a.k.a Mary.O), has called on parents and teachers to help their wards develop hidden talents through writing.
Oladepo said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the graduation ceremony of four students of the academy in Lagos.
According to her, the hub organises three months intensive coaching lessons to discovered talents and motivates them to bring out their best.
She said that the task of talent hunting was thorough and tedious as some of the children were also drawn from the streets.
She also claimed that it was easier to search from students of private schools because of less bureaucratic procedures unlike their counterparts in public schools.
She said 10 students qualified in the last batch, but only the books written by four of them are published.
She said that four of the students were able to publish their works because they got support from their parents while the other six could not because their parents could not afford the cost of the publication which is N170,000.
Oladepo said the four published works have their e-books ready for publication on Amazon.
The writing coach said that the academy was looking for sponsorship to have a befitting office to train more upcoming writers.
Oladepo said one of academy major challenge is finance as she had to transport herself to the school ground where the children assembled for the coaching.
The 2022 graduands of the academy included Fedora Anaba, Emmanuella Amakor, Bamisaye Joshua and Ademikanlu Shikemi. They are all students of National College Gbagada.
Bamisaye published “The African drummer boy,” Fedora published “My identity,” Emmanuella, “The Queen’s Letter,” while Shikemi published “The ABC’s of Life”.
The academy, which was established in 2020 to bring out hidden talents in children, to encourage and support them to write had so far raised 12 authors.