On Thursday, 23rd, November Dr. Emilios Solomou awarded Form 5 student at the GC School of Careers in Nicosia, Dorina Diakou, for being the recipient for the Silver award for The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition of 2023 on the theme: “A Youth-Powered Commonwealth” (Senior Category).
Dorina’s reflection on her experience with the Competition:
I often think of life as though it’s like riding on a bike. In the beginning we have training wheels, as we get older you get rid of them. As we get older, we change and we start to realise that the hardest lesson in life is that we are not always the main character in other’s stories, but only in our own. Sometimes falling off that bike of ours will only make us stronger and this is why I decided to participate in the Commonwealth Essay Competition. I always loved writing …about life, about others, about the things that I love or want to achieve. I always felt that writing reflects my feelings at that specific moment.
The topic I chose for The Queen’s Commonwealth Competition was about age; if age matters. As a 16-year-old girl, everything is changing day by day, but stereotypes are always there and still exist and this is what inspired me to write about this topic which touched me and made me contemplate by thinking outside the box. Writing this essay was a journey of maturity and growth for me as it made me understand life on a deeper level and how some things in this world are not as simple as we believe they are. While writing this essay, my aim was to help the reader see and feel that things can be different because it is possible and we shouldn’t take anything for granted.
Dorina’s full essay contribution can be accessed here.
This post is also available in: Ελληνικά (Greek)