Closing date approaches for Concern writing comp

As part of the second annual Cecil Woodham-Smith Creative Writing Competition, Concern Worldwide is giving you a chance to write a letter to the newly elected US president outlining your greatest concerns with regard to child labour, climate change and the developing world or world hunger.

Your letter can be in the style of a factual essay or a fictional story covering one of the above issues. Prizes will be awarded in each category, with all entrants receiving a free 3-month subscription to hotpress.com.

And the entries are already flooding in!

One writer in the 19-year-old+ adult category emphasised to Obama and the world that hunger can only be attacked with a universal effort, and compared modern tragedies in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia to the Great Hunger.

"I am writing to you as a human being, a world citizen no different from the people who are fighting starvation today," they wrote.

"Time and distance may separate the hungry from the fed, but we are all one."

Another entry from the same age group took a more critical look at hunger with a microscope on world leaders' inefficiency at leveling the huge discrepancy between the world's rich and poor.

"Do our respected leaders feel the contrast?" the letter asks. "Can the leaders of the world make a balance between the two absolutely polarised money-earning patterns? I am not politician. I am not a public leader... Whatever I have documented so far is my deliberation from the perspective of public health and, over and above, from the point of humanity."

A writer from the 12-to-15-year-old junior category pled with Obama to take pity on child laborers, and urged him to take action on the global epidemic. The entry said effort against the exploitation would make Obama an iconic lion-heart:

"[My friends and I] feel very angry about this situation... We think you should stand out because you would be a great hero and you will probably be the first president to care about the world [more] than [his] own country."

Finally, a senior entrant between the ages of 16 and 18 hoped Obama would simply keep his promises to the world, and ensure that each person was granted the rights to which he preached they were entitled:

"In your inauguration speech, you said 'All are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.' ...How are the Street Children in Mogadishu or Calcutta any different to sons and daughters of Ireland or America? They all deserve equality, freedom and the pursuit of happiness."

Entries for the contest will be accepted until Sunday, March 22 at midnight and each person may only enter one letter. Contestants must be at least 12-years-old.

For more information on the contest, or to enter, click here