Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Young women took the top spots when YTEPP Ltd held its Pub­lic Speak­ing and Poster Com­pe­ti­tion on Sat­ur­day.

Speak­ing at the event, YTEPP chair­man Dr Mau­rice Jones urged young peo­ple to de­vel­op strong com­mu­ni­ca­tion and lead­er­ship skills, say­ing these are crit­i­cal for suc­cess in to­day’s world.

Speak­ing to trainees and stake­hold­ers gath­ered at YTEPP’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters, Jones said the com­pe­ti­tion pro­vid­ed an im­por­tant plat­form for par­tic­i­pants to ex­press them­selves, build con­fi­dence and de­vel­op as fu­ture lead­ers.

“Suc­cess is not built on aca­d­e­mics or tech­ni­cal skills alone, but on the abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate, to lead and to adapt,” he said.

Jones stressed that at­ti­tude plays a ma­jor role in de­ter­min­ing suc­cess, not­ing that how in­di­vid­u­als car­ry them­selves can in­flu­ence how far they go in life.

“It is not your ap­ti­tude, but your at­ti­tude that de­ter­mines your al­ti­tude,” he told the au­di­ence.

Jones en­cour­aged par­tic­i­pants to seek out men­tors and pos­i­tive role mod­els, while recog­nis­ing that no one is per­fect. In­stead, he said, young peo­ple should learn from the strengths of oth­ers.

Draw­ing on in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal ex­am­ples, Jones ref­er­enced bil­lion­aire in­vestor War­ren Buf­fett, who over­came a fear of pub­lic speak­ing, and lo­cal en­ter­tain­er Lit­tle Bits, whose per­son­al jour­ney re­flects re­silience and growth.

Jones al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of hu­mil­i­ty, de­scrib­ing it as hav­ing a prop­er un­der­stand­ing of one’s strengths and weak­ness­es, rather than weak­ness or in­fe­ri­or­i­ty.

He said ini­tia­tives such as the pub­lic speak­ing com­pe­ti­tion are strate­gi­cal­ly im­por­tant, as they help to pre­pare trainees for the mod­ern work­force by strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion, con­fi­dence and lead­er­ship skills.

Jones added that par­tic­i­pat­ing in such com­pe­ti­tions can be just as im­pact­ful as for­mal train­ing, as it pro­vides re­al-world ex­pe­ri­ence and feed­back.

En­cour­ag­ing the con­tes­tants, he said all par­tic­i­pants should view them­selves as win­ners for hav­ing the courage to com­pete.

“You have al­ready suc­ceed­ed by dar­ing to par­tic­i­pate. This is not just about com­pe­ti­tion. It is about un­lock­ing po­ten­tial and build­ing the lead­ers of to­mor­row, to­day,” he said.

The Pub­lic Speak­ing Com­pe­ti­tion was di­vid­ed in­to two seg­ments: the pre­pared speech seg­ment and the im­promp­tu seg­ment. Par­tic­i­pants made their pre­sen­ta­tion be­fore a pan­el of judges.

The art com­pe­ti­tion was pre-judged.

Win­ners in the pre­pared speech com­pe­ti­tion

• First place- Je­niece James

• ↓Sec­ond place- Je­sus Carmi­no Gar­away

• Third place – Abi­gail Cae­sar

Win­ners of the im­promp­tu speech com­pe­ti­tion

• First place- Gen­e­sis Hood

• Sec­ond place-Abi­gail Cae­sar

• ↓Third place- Genevieve Kennedy

The poster com­pe­ti­tion was won by Deli­cia Luces.