To celebrate the National Year of Reading events, a competition was opened to schools and adults to write a 500 word short story/non-fiction piece or news article based around the themes of either Refugees or Empathy.

The story writing competition highlighted the fantastic writing and creative skills of our local students and community, with the judges especially impressed with the breadth of subject matter, different approaches to storytelling, presentation of information / opinion and high standard of entries.

The competition has formed part of a host of exciting and highly successful community partnership events and organisations so far this year for the National Year of Reading - including multiple author visits, story telling events and a book sculpture competition. Further special events and collaborations are currently being planned for the Autumn too, with details to be announced in the coming weeks.

The Beacon will be running a selection of those entries in the coming weeks but the winners are

Primary Category. Scarlet Thomas - Gold 'First Place' certificate

Secondary School Category: Clarabel Perez - Gold 'First Place' certificate; Alana Davis - Silver 'Second Place' certificate; Kyla Redknapp - Bronze 'Honor Certificate'; Ophelia Tansey-Pettit - Bronze 'Honor Certificate'

Sixth Form Category: Varvara Riabinina - Gold 'First Place' certificate; Cai Davies - Silver 'Second Place' certificate

Adult Category: Maria - First Place - Non-Fiction Comment Article - Adult Award; Caroline Bagnall - First Place - Non-Fiction Feature Article - Adult Award; Rod Wassell - First Place - Fiction Category - Adult Award.

Varvara Riabinina, who won Gold 'First Place' certificate has written an introductory paragraph.

Speaking out about the realities of life as a refugee may be extremely difficult when the country that provided you with a shelter makes you feel like a pariah. No, the refugees will never “belong”. They long for their homeland. They’ve never dreamed of ending up here, they were brought here by the circumstances – war.

But this doesn’t mean that they are to be treated like outcastes. They may feel like ones, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to us all being human.

No one deserves to be laughed at or rejected from the order of things in a community. I believe that all cultures are to be respected and not treated as something that divides people into “ours” and “others”.

Refugees’ futures are hidden away in their bittersweet smiles and endless “thank you’s. Is their courage to lunge into the unknown being overlooked, or have many just dismissed them as invaders who steal jobs?

The story writing competition highlighted the fantastic writing and creative skills of our local students and community, with the judges especially impressed with the breadth of subject matter, different approaches to storytelling, presentation of information / opinion and high standard of entries.

The competition has formed part of a host of exciting and highly successful community partnership events and organisations so far this year for the National Year of Reading - including multiple author visits, story telling events and a book sculpture competition. Further special events and collaborations are currently being planned for the Autumn too, with details to be announced in the coming weeks.