This year’s judges include BBC news reporter Ashley John-Baptiste, rap artist Ric Flo, author Jenny Molloy and many more brilliant writers, authors, poets, and journalists who all have experience of or a particular interest in the care system.
The theme is ‘Growing Up’, and children in care and care leavers are invited to write any piece on this under 500 words to be in with a chance of winning up to £100 in Love2Shop vouchers, and the opportunity to attend our amazing awards ceremony in London. Entries can be in any form from a short story, poem, rap or song.
You can watch the brand new animation of one of our 2018 entries, ‘I Am Proud Of….’ written by 10 year old Lewis below to get a feel for what Voices is all about.
Entries can be submitted until the competition closing date on 10 February 2019 and there are four age categories: Primary School, Lower Secondary (11-14), Upper Secondary (15-18) and Care Leavers. Shortlisted entrants will be invited to the awards ceremony and have their writing published in a special book which will showcase their talent and achievements.
Last year was an incredible success and the awards ceremony was hosted by actor Peter Capaldi. Two of our Voices 2018 runners up were also presented to the Queen and had the opportunity to read their pieces aloud in front of Her Majesty. It was a wonderful experience for these young writers, many of whom have continued with their own writing projects, including care leaver Louise, who writes an impressive blog!
Mumsnet has also featured Voices 2019 as one of its January guest campaigns, encouraging as many people as possible to enter and spread the word about the competition. Mumsnet’s monthly guest campaigns provide a platform for charities and organisations to share information about valuable causes. See the campaign here: https://www.mumsnet.com/campaigns/guest-campaigns-january-2019
Visit https://coramvoice.org.uk/voices-2019 to find out more about this fantastic opportunity, or email voices@coramvoice.org.uk for more information about how you can get involved.