“I Have a Dream” Through the Eyes of Abuja Students

High schools students in Abuja were tasked with interpreting the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King as part of activities celebrating his life.  And they did it with a bang.  The students drawn from ten high schools in the federal capital put up various performances to showcase their talent.

 While some expressed themselves through poetry, many others acted, sang, or did both. Some schools also exhibited some art in addition to their stage performances.  It was indeed a spectacle as the crowd and the judges watched with rapt attention and laughed at some drops of humor.

At times like this when some of the content of this famous speech have begun to be manifest, a
celebration of this kind reminds us of how far we have come and what we still need to do.  It was especially impressive that one of the schools interpreted the speech with respect to the conundrums facing Nigeria today with dreams that someday these challenges would be history.

In summary, the event was a success achieving what it set out to do—being educational as well as entertaining—and we look forward to next year’s event where hopefully, there will be some “spoken word” performances.





Chiamaka Chima is an engineering graduate student at Tufts University.  She was a student beneficiary of the U.S. Embassy EducationUSA Section and a participant in the United States Achievers Program.