The best speller in Africa resides in Johannesburg
RUIMSIG – Monash South Africa's first African Spelling Bee crowns Johannesburg pupil as the best speller in Africa.
Kedgeree, a cooked dish consisting of rice, lentils and spices, was the winning word in this year’s African Spelling Bee, hosted by [Monash South Africa (MSA).
MSA partnered with The African Spelling Bee Consortium to organise and host the first African Spelling Bee. The African Spelling delegation consisted of 27 pupils from participating African countries, including Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Botswana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and South Africa.
The competitors visited the Monash South Africa campus for a tour and a fun learning session before their championship finale held recently.
In first place was Zameer Dada from South Africa, and in joint second place was Ethiopia’s Betelhem Kidane and Alma Wanjiku from Kenya.
The championship consisted of three challenging first rounds, where contestants had to spell multi-lingual words, followed by the final round of spelling; the intimidating ’25 Championship’.
The final spelling champion, 14-year-old Zameer Dada from Johannesburg, battled it out against the 24 other spelling contestants to win the title and the grand prize, a Monash South Africa undergraduate tuition scholarship.
Bronwyn Dugtig, head of community engagement at Monash South Africa said, “The African Spelling Bee brought together incredibly talented young people, who were not only given the opportunity to compete but by staying together and getting to know each other, they learned to celebrate each other’s culture and language. They are still all winners as they each left with new friends from over nine countries.”
Details: Monash South Africa, 011 950 4000.
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