The East Africa School Poetry Championship (EASPC) is a bold, cross-border leadership programme that transforms the pen and the spoken word into instruments of national and regional change. Reaching secondary school students across Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, EASPC exists to identify, train, and elevate a new generation of confident, articulate, and socially conscious young leaders using poetry as the spark, and leadership as the destination.
More than a competition, EASPC is a structured developmental journey. Every participating student is equipped with practical skills in research, public speaking, literary creativity, and innovation, the same competencies that define Africa's most effective advocates, policy-makers, and change-makers.
Every student who reaches the finals earns something no cheque can measure: a place in EASPC’s highly coveted fully-funded, one-week Leadership Residency. Here, finalists step beyond competition into immersive mentorship, cross-cultural exchange, and hands-on leadership formation that is designed to shape them into
Africa’s next generation of top leaders.
Across East Africa, thousands of brilliant young voices remain unheard – not for lack of talent, but for lack of a platform. EASPC is VICAI’s answer: a regional stage built to discover, train, and champion the storytellers, orators, and innovators who will lead our region’s next chapter. By anchoring leadership development in creativity, EASPC nurtures not just better speakers and writers, but better thinkers, citizens, and leaders.
