Writing Your Way To Greatness: Towards A Better Society

The 5^th Edition of the Fidelity International Creative Writing Workshop began on Sunday July 8 2012 in Lagos. The week – long event is a vital part of the bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program, CSR, through which the bank continues to push for a better society by developing the writing as well as reading skills of young Nigerians. About five graduands of the Workshop series have received scholarship to study Creative Writing abroad; some others have become published writer; and one of them two years ago won the CNN African Journalist of the Year Award. This year’s edition was anchored by Helon Habila, a professor of Creative Writing, George Mason University, Virginia. Helon is also the first  Nigerian winner of the Caine Prize and the winner of the of the Commonwealth Prize as well as the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at the Bard College on the Hudson River, New York. He was supported by Aminatta Forna, a renowned author and the winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best Book Award in 2011 and Sally keith, a professor at the George Mason University, Virginia, U.S.A and the winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry. In the past editions of the Workshop, America’s Dave Eggers, Antigua’s Marie Elena Jean and Britain’s Jason Cowley played active parts leading the workshop with our own Chimamanda Adichie and Kenya’s Binyivariga Wainara, This year, 30 participants were selected from over 500 entries that were received by the instructors ( as against 300 entries in 2011). Entries came from various parts of the world – an indication of the increasing popularity and importance of the Workshop.  Already a 10-man Committee comprising the Fidelity Helping Hands Program, FHHP, Volunteers from units, branches and departments around Victoria Island worked with the Marketing Communications Group to deliver a seamless program. We serve you the pictures.