Tuesday 18 January 2011

Excel for Charity International Writing Competition Series

The world is better and much is being achieved for an overall better society because of the many men and women who are giving their time and money to support specific needy areas of our lives.

Some seek to heal the wounds of racism and social segregation, some seek to find solutions to debilitating conditions such as diabetes, lupus, cancer and mental illness, some seek solutions against child abuse, animal abuse, or abuse of the elderly, and others seek to empower less privileged people or communities by providing education, helping with fees and building schools.

Whatever the cause a charity addresses, all charities have something in common - THEY NEED MONEY TO KEEP DOING THEIR WORK. At Excel for Charity, we seek to raise the writers' mite to help the charities.

The argument is simple:

Writers would write anyway, that's what they do - write.

Writers enter thousands of competitions every year, and they pay to enter these competitions.

When a writer enters an Excel for Charity competition, one third of his or her entry fee goes to the charity the competition supports. The writer also stands a chance of winning one of three cash prizes and the associated literary glory.

Sometimes, the literary glory is all the writer wants. A good example is our last competition; the Build Africa competition. All three winners Gabriel Griffin-Hall, Jeni Williams and Margaret Eddershaw donated their winnings totalling £260.00 to Build Africa (www.build-africa.org.uk).

If you like what we do at Excel for Charity, you too can help by (a) Entering one of our competitions.

(b) Endowing a Prize for a charity you normally support.

To see our Wall of Honour celebrating winners of past Excel for Charity competitions, to see how you can contribute to what we are doing at Excel for Charity or to take part in our current competition, go to
http://www.easternlightepm.com/excelforcharity

Thursday 6 January 2011

HEALER

Afflictions dance,
make carnival before me
in parks, trams and coaches

dilated, waning gems peer
out of faces young,some old
they reach out to me

my heart says 'lay hands upon
their heads.' He will heal them
through me for His own sake

Sadly, always afraid He might not
I sheath my hands in the pockets
of my Thomasian pants

I betray my faith
I betray myself
I betray my God.

- Nnorom Azuonye