A Talent Hunt with a Difference
Poised by the desire to seek for young raw talents Mrs. Kay Ovia, wife of the founder and Chairman of Zenith Bank founded the ‘Star Rising’, talent hunt for children.
Working with the children for her, has always been her passion and in them she finds “purity of self and fresh clay to mold.” More so borne out of passion to give back to the society, ‘Star Rising’ a non- profit organization is committed to elevate well-rounded and raw skilled intellectual Nigerian children.
With a team of women whose thoughts towards the welfare of children are similar, they came together and agreed to make success of their set dream.
The intention of the Star Rising/ Mastermind Initiative, she said is to support the less privileged children to achieve the highest level of academic excellence possible on the one hand, whilst also enabling other children talented in creative arts to equally excel in their hidden talents. This, Ovia believes will be achieved using her Star Rising Centres situated across Nigeria.
The centres would discover, hone, and nurture God given talents, provide free counseling and mentoring programmes, a well-equipped modern library and to provide talent development classes for the children with a target audience of children between the ages of 7-17 and in line with what most local and international women conferences are addressing all over the world.
Ovia, whose thought about the accomplishment of young ones is uppermost in her mind explained that ‘Star Rising is unique and different from other children talent hunts because it is a long term programme where children would not be dropped along the way but rather mentors would step in to harness raw talents to fruition.
She said ‘Mentoring to fruition is very important and that explains why Star Rising Talent hunt is not about giving winners particular prices for songs well sang or very creative dance steps; rather it is a long term investment where mentors would step in boldly and sharpen a creative child to effectively compete with other children of the world while getting his or her price from the team. We would not drop any raw talent discovered because we would be determined to nurture that talent progressively. Unlike most other talent hunts that attract monetary status, she mentioned that no expense is expected of any child or group of children who are interested in the hunt but that everything is free.
The team, which started their planning since February, had gone ahead to different schools within and outside the comfort zones to create awareness of the November 22, 2014 in Lagos.
Over 120 children attended the maiden edition of the event from 25 governmentowned primary and secondary schools across Lagos. According to Mrs. Ovia, “It was a tough selection process for judges who eventually came up with top ten finalists cumulating in a total of 28 children taking part in the competition at the grand finale of the Star Rising talent hunt show, which took place on December 20 in Lagos. These children performed and competed for the Master Star position either individually or as a group where a few of them emerged winners.
The first raw talent discovered by the team of carefully selected judges, Precious Udo, a 10-year solo performer from Queens College, Onikan got a cash reward of N350, 000.00, a trip to the Ibom Hotel and Resorts, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, N100, 000.00 to spend on d trip, a Samsung Tabloid and internet access.
The second prize winner, Timothy Atta anther solo performer from Christ the Redeemers Secondary School, Gbagada, went with a cash reward of N250, 000.00, Samsung Tablet and three years Internet access, while the 3rd position went to Alex Louis still a solo performer from Falomo High School, Ikoyi who went home with N150, 000.00, Samsung tablet and internet access.