Three primary school children broke through a chrysalis-hard literary competition involving 102 entries from eight schools on Grand Cayman and emerged victors in the third annual Rotary Butterfly Storybook competition.

Winners 10 year old Ellie Nickason, of Cayman Prep and High School, 9-year-old Diamond White from Prospect Primary School and Zara Garafolo, also 9, of St. Ignatius Prep School were nominated to represent the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean wide contest and their names were recently announced as the top 10 winners throughout the Caribbean.

Sponsored by the Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean 7020, the competition was open to “young, emerging writers” in the region to create stories around this year’s theme: “Lighting up Lives through Acts of Kindness, Friendship, Leadership and/or Respect”.

“Last year, we had eight entries while in the first year we had 21 stories to judge. This year’s impressive number of entries is a testimony to the interest that the competition has generated among primary schools. It has been a very impressive showing this year indeed with many excellent stories,” commented competition coordinator Rotarian Hendrik-Jan van Genderen for the local organiser Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Sunrise.

The three students were the guests of honour at Rotary Sunrise’s weekly meeting on Wednesday, 14 January where they each received from Club President Kim Remizowski a $50-gift certificate to buy books and they each regaled members and guests by reading out their winning creations.

Mr. van Genderen explained that all primary schools on Grand Cayman were invited to have their pupils aged 7-11 years participate. With the competition open to all clubs in the regional Rotary District 7020 invited to participate, each club can nominate three entries. Out of these, 10 will be chosen as the best in the region and have those stories published on amazon.com in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Creole. The 10 winners and all participants will be recognised during the Club’s Literacy Month in March, he added.