A Year 5 pupil, Madiwa Adjepong-Boateng (aged 10), has received an award for his novel-writing efforts at a ceremony at the Cambridge University Faculty of Law. Madiwa was presented with a certificate by Dr Nikhil Seth, a senior United Nations director, for writing novels for the UN’s Voices of Future Generations children's book series (VoFG), marking the anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The certification event celebrated the first three child authors in the VoFG series and their contribution to human creativity and inspiration for current and future generations.
Madiwa spoke at the launch of the UN-backed VoFG Project in November last year. Through this series, selected child authors use their stories, which are published in colourful board books, to offer creative and imaginative solutions to the unique challenges faced by the children in their region of the world. Madiwa submitted an inaugural story representing Africa and read an extract at the certification event.
Written using the pen name Diwa Boateng, Madiwa’s story has been approved and will soon be published. Entitled "The Forward and Backward City", it is about inequality as seen through the eyes of two boys: one rich and the other poor. Madiwa carried out empirical research for the story on his last visit to Ghana and drew on some of the observations he made in South Africa, where he was born, and internet research. Based on his successful first entry, he has been invited to publish two sequels to give the characters continuity and greater impact.
