?We need love, we need hope/ To show our love and give hope.? An endearing feeling of excitement had won audience and stage on Saturday, 10th of February at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute as the Power in the Voice (PIV) competition was officially launched in Mauritius. At that same moment, one could hear resound in himself these verses told, sung, rythmed in the Mauritian style and mixed with Creole by local rap artists, led by the charismatic Aeikilat Choumz, and joined by peers from Mozambique and England.

Tapping ?into the wealth of oral and performance traditions, rhythms, sounds? of people from Botswana, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, this competition, organised by the British Council, helps young candidates (over 15) to find their voices through music, performance, poetry and story-telling.

PIV clearly brings a new dynamism to the common use and learning of the English medium, as explains Simon Ingram-Hill, British Council?s director. Not just using it but also enjoying it without inhibitions.

<B>Intimidating context of the MGI hall</B>

A view shared by Veena Rahimbux, English teacher at the Calebasses state secondary school : ?The competition is an invaluable opportunity for my Form VI students to blossom, especially to express their feelings.? She refers to a selection of schools in each participating country comprised in the PIV programme. ?It has undeniably instilled a greater implication and interest from students in the class?, follows the teacher. ?I am happy that they seize this opportunity because school is not just about delivering knowledge but also to share, and develop oneself.?

As she points out, there have been competitions before, but which were not open at the same time to music, story-telling and performance poetry. Saturday, her students were in the audience: in the intimidating context of the MGI hall, they got carried away and reacted very positively to the interactive show set up by Breis, the hiphop renaissance man from England, Arssen, his Mozambican colleague, the versatile Thierry Françoise, and accomplished stage artists like the moving Priyadarshini Boodhoo, a singer and teacher based in Mauritius or Anjum Bholah, also educator, actress and youth project facilitator.

The PIV has thus to offer something new by solidly networking people from different backgrounds. Nobody is more conscious of that and enthusiastic than the passionate Yasmin Hedoo, British Council?s Marketing Events and PR manager, and Mauritian coordinator of the PIV programme: ?There is a unique opportunity to unite people, to achieve team building on a platform where all can express, far from the prejudices that associate simplistically a certain type of music with a certain portion of the population.? Not only does any youngster, who speaks any language, ordinarily enjoy to sing in English, ?Saturday we heard a Bollywood lyric supported by rap artists. It is just the way young people communicate!?

Actually less young people have also replied spontaneously and massively to the prospect of creating or performing in English. As a consequence, though the objective was first to empower those aged grossly between 15 and 20, a new category, including parents or professional writers, has been created.

Now that the PIV has been launched, local artists will act as mentors to support new talents. There is an excitingly human adventure to come until the final of the competition and the prize giving ceremony in 2008.

This newly-born effervescence is full of promises. It is those kinds of events that, ultimately, ferment worthwhile creativity among individuals or link groups, but also favour the rarest finds that express a nation?s most harmonious and universal wealth.