By Shauna Jemmott

STUDENTS of Hope Secondary School have been invited to be the first to write news and feature stories for the Guyana Chronicle and in their new roles as practising journalists they can highlight their communities in the national newspaper.Guyana Chronicle Editor Godfrey Wray extended the invitation to the students to submit articles for a new weekly feature titled ‘Teenage Chronicle,’ which will be published in the Sunday Chronicle.
The students were at the time on tour of Guyana National Newspapers Limited (GNNL) at Lama Avenue, Bel Air Park, Georgetown.

“If any one of you are ambitious enough, and you want to do some work, we’re going to have a section for schoolchildren. You can write stories, send them in and you will be paid for it,” the Editor said.
‘STORY OF THE WEEK’
He stated that the newspaper will also consider later this year awarding the students with prizes for the ‘Story of the week’ and ‘Photograph of the week.’
Moreover, students countrywide are encouraged to build their writing skills and develop stronger literary interest through this new arrangement.
Stories, Wray said, should be submitted via e-mail to gnnleditorial@gmail.com, along with the student’s name, age and school.
“This is the national newspaper,” he told the students, and added that Guyana Chronicle is “the paper that you should be reading every day.”
The editor recalled that in his younger days his father ensured that the newspaper was available daily in their home and as a child he naturally loved reading the news. He said too that newspapers in those days featured a lot more activities for youths. He encouraged the students to adopt a similar attitude towards current affairs.
He explained to the 105 students and their 10 teachers during their visit to the Editorial Department that the Guyana Chronicle has been re-branded, and its new presentation is not what they are accustomed to seeing.
“We’ve rebranded the newspaper and we definitely want you to communicate with it,” the Editor told the touring students.
Meanwhile, Hope Secondary teacher and chief organiser of the educational tour, Miss Vonetta Liverpool, said that the outing was part of their visits to places of interest.
“We find it [GNNL] as a place of interest and I realise that they don’t have a lot of students visiting the news organisations. I thought of it to bring the children so that they can have a first-hand look at how the news is being done and how it is printed and so on.”
Another teacher, Ms. Sylvia said the school has an interesting Social Studies programme, which also features current affairs and the visit to the GNNL has made the children more familiar with news agencies.
She said the children are also encouraged in the area of creative writing and each of them on the tour will be asked to present a composition in school about where they had visited.
One of the students, K-Lee Johnson, said the tour to the newspaper has sparked her interest in advertising, which she learned generates revenue for the financial sustenance and development of the company. She was also amazed to see how the words are printed on paper.
Patrice Pietre, another student, said he was delighted to visit the library of the Guyana Chronicle in particular, where he discovered how readily he can be informed about interesting historical events in this country. The Guyana Chronicle is also known for having one of the best archival collections of newspapers in Guyana.