Saai Soumik Santosh from Nakuru County has scooped an award in the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition in UK.
Saai Soumik is the son to Nakuru Businessman Mr Santosh Devaraj.
“This is to certify that the Royal Commonwealth Society, on the recommendation of the judges, has awarded this certificate to: Saai Soumik Santosh.,”
Soumik Santosh is from Melvin Jones Lions Academy in Nakuru.
The school has congratulated him for the Silver Award terming it outstanding achievement.
Soumik Santosh competed against over 50,000 entries from around the World.
His father Mr Santosh Devaraj has also welcomed the Award congratulating his son for the achievement.
He says, “We are proud of this as a family.He has always been discipline in his studies and this achievement can be attributed to that”
The results were announced by Royal Commonwealth Society.
The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) is proud to announce the winners of The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition (QCEC) 2025, the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools.
This year’s competition achieved a historic milestone, attracting a record-breaking 53,434 entries from across the 56 member countries of the Commonwealth – a 53% increase from 2024. Submissions came from 54 nations, with particularly strong participation from Ghana, Nigeria, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the Maldives.
This year’s winners were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges, including:
Sir Ben Okri OBE, Booker Prize-winning novelist and poet
Imtiaz Dharker, Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry recipient
Victoria Hislop, author of The Island
Annie Garthwaite, author of Cecily and The King’s Mother
Chetna Makan, cookbook author and former Great British Bake Off contestant
Caroline Haines CC, educator and City of London Education Board
Ntsika Kota, Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner
Portia Subran, Trinidadian writer and visual artist
Maria Samuela, Cook Islands author based in New Zealand
Dr Paul Edmondson, Head of Research, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Joanne C. Hillhouse, founder of the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize
The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition (QCEC) is the world’s oldest international schools’ writing contest, established by the Royal Commonwealth Society in 1883. With thousands of young people taking part each year, it is an important way to recognise achievement, elevate youth voices and develop key skills through creative writing.
Each year, entrants write on a theme that explores the Commonwealth’s values, fostering an empathetic worldview in the next generation of leaders and encouraging young people to consider new perspectives on the challenges that the world faces. Themes have included the environment, community, inclusion, the role of youth leadership, and gender equality.
In the past decade alone, this high-profile competition has engaged over 200,000 young people, over 5,000 schools and thousands of volunteer judges across the Commonwealth.
Past winners have gone on to become leaders in their fields, including the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mei Fong, and the renowned author, the late Elspeth Huxley CBE.