Bubbly. Charming. Lady in pink. These are some of the words to describe this issue’s guest spotlight: Tara Sabrina Mohammad.
Tara, who is now in Grade 11 taking up Humanities and Social Sciences strand, acts as the editor-in-chief of Candle Pen, our school’s official publication and has been with the organization since School Year 2020-2021 as a junior writer. She moved up the editorial board rank into a literary editor the following school year and as the managing editor for publications just last school year.
"My passion for writing has stemmed from my childhood interest in reading,” she shared. “While I always found writing entertaining, I never imagined it would become an extracurricular of mine."
According to her, she has always been writing as a form of leisure and only took it up seriously when one of her 8th grade teachers recommended that she join the journalism club.
But it was not easy; it takes practice to be a good writer. To be skilled at something easily is hard, practicing writing was what Tara did. She wrote to enhance her skills, to share her thoughts, and most importantly, as any writer does, to entertain the readers. She wrote captivating articles about the pandemic, her awards, and the world.
In fact, Tara has endeavored to write for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and has now published articles under her name. Check out her writings on this website.
Aside from journalism, Ms. Mohammad has also explored the world of Model United Nations, an organization that provides guides and workshops that teach students how to make their pitches, share knowledge, and propose solutions to world issues. It is also a competition, which Tara has also participated in and won awards including the Best Position Paper and the Best Speaker Award.
Another recognition that our guest boasts is the highly coveted Ten Outstanding Students of Makati award. The competition, held last May 2023 with awarding ceremony taking place in June, gathers the top Grade 10 students of the city and conducts various activities such as quiz bee, extemporaneous speaking, talent showcase, and documentation of co-curricular and extracurricular activities in order to determine the Top 10 students.
“Not my will, but thy will be done.” This was her constant prayer during the awarding ceremony, which according to her “was a relentless reminder to myself that the outcome, whatever it would be, is in God’s perfect plan and will.”
It was a special moment for her as she never thought that she would be able to receive the award after going through the math portion in the final round of the quiz bee in which she deemed she already lost the contest.
Her most recent award was during the National Schools Press Conference (NSPC). Dubbed as the Olympics of Journalism in the Philippines, Tara was able to participate in this competition last July in Cagayan de Oro City after winning the first place for Copyreading and Headline Writing during the regional level. In the nationals, Tara joyfully bagged the third place against the other champions from other regions of the country.
This was the first time since 2020 that the Department of Education has conducted this competition which gathered more than thousands of campus journalists for different events such as News Writing, Feature Writing, Sports Writing, Editorial Writing, and others.
This was also the school's second time to reach the national, after Patrick Lo managed to secure an entry for news writing in 2020, and the first time to claim a podium finish.
With another school year ahead of her, who knows what surprises and blessings will come her way.
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