Johor girl to meet Queen Camilla at Buckingham Palace

PETALING JAYA: The biggest highlight of 15-year-old Kong Yong Sin’s year is less than a week away.

This Sunday (Nov 12), the SMK Tinggi Kluang, Johor student will board a flight to the United Kingdom, where she will meet Queen Camilla at Buckingham Palace on Thursday (Nov 16).

The much-anticipated trip is her reward for being runner-up of the senior category of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition (QCEC) 2023.

While a number of awards were given for both the senior (ages 14-18) and junior (under 14) categories, only a winner and a runner-up were named for each category.

The cream of the crop will enjoy a “winners’ week” and will be hosted at a special awards ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

The winners of both categories, as well as the junior runner-up, are from India.

Their entries stood out from a record-breaking 34,924 received from all Commonwealth regions.

Yong Sin, a participant of The Star’s BRATs Young Journalist Programme, was in disbelief when the announcement of the top four winners was made via a recent video call.

On her win and upcoming trip, she told The Star that “it’s all still pretty overwhelming”.

In her entry, she tackled the question “Does age matter?” with a short story titled “Observations made at a Local Kopitiam, 13th of March, 2023”.

Open to all Commonwealth citizens aged 18 and below, the QCEC, hosted by the UK-based Royal Commonwealth Society, is the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools.

Each year, it welcomes participants to write on a theme that stems from the Commonwealth’s values and principles, while at the same time working towards developing key literacy skills and fostering an empathetic and open-minded world view.

This year’s theme was “A Youth-Led Commonwealth”, challenging participants to explore the power young people hold within the global community and to consider how this power can be harnessed to make a meaningful impact on the world.

Applications for the 2024 edition of The Star’s BRATs Young Journalist Programme are now open. For details, go to facebook.com/niebrats.