How Mass Comm Student Favour Eze Won a $3,000 International Creative Award

By Success Essien, Jacinta Ijeoma and Adebisi Bolarinwa 

For Favour Eze Ebubechukwu, a 200-level Mass Communication student of the University of Lagos, art begins where lived experience ends. It is most powerful when it feels honest, familiar, and human. That belief recently earned her a $3,000 People’s Choice Prize for A Letter to Art, a poetry and video piece that explores trauma, growth, and the slow process of self-discovery.

The award came through an international creative competition organised by “Be Still Media,”  a global platform that supports emerging poets, writers, musicians, and visual artists. Guided by a theme centred on authenticity and human experience, Favour’s work stood out not because it was loud or complex, but because it was sincere.

Rather than reaching for abstraction, she told a story that felt close to home. A Letter to Art follows the inner journey of an ordinary individual, tracing how personal struggles, emotional wounds, and time itself shape identity. It is a narrative many recognise, even if they have never put it into words.

Her choice was deliberate. She wanted something people could feel rather than decode. In her view, relatability was not a creative limitation but a strength. The story did not need spectacle. It needed truth.

The final piece, however, did not come easily. Before settling on A Letter to Art, Favour explored multiple directions. She experimented with abstract concepts, prose, and scriptwriting, an area she has grown increasingly curious about. Yet something felt incomplete. Writing scripts without the means to fully execute them visually left her unsatisfied.

With limited resources and time, she stripped the idea back to what felt most natural. Poetry and visual storytelling allowed her to express herself fully without compromise. When the piece was finished, she knew it was right. It felt like her.

She discovered the competition during exam season and was not actively searching for opportunities at the time. Academic demands took priority, but the idea stayed with her. She wrote when inspiration came, allowing the project to grow slowly. When exams ended in early September and the submission deadline approached in October, she finally had the space to focus.

Support played a quiet but crucial role in her journey. Friends believed in the work from the start. Her family provided encouragement, emotional stability, and financial backing at a time when she had very little as a student. When voting opened, classmates and departmental executives helped circulate flyers, sharing her work widely and consistently.

Many people promoted the project even more than she did herself.

Winning the People’s Choice Prize brought joy, but not closure. The moment felt significant, yet transitional. To Favour, it was not an arrival point but a beginning. She describes it as a step forward rather than a destination.

She invested the prize money into tools for growth, purchasing a laptop and a phone to support her creative development. Beyond equipment, she is investing time and effort, learning scriptwriting, cinematography, and video editing as she shapes her future direction.

A Mass Communication student, Favour once imagined herself becoming a news writer. Today, her interests have shifted. Storytelling, visual production, and emotionally driven narratives now feel more aligned with who she is becoming. She remains open to evolution, allowing her creative identity to unfold rather than forcing it into a fixed mold.

For Favour Eze Ebubechukwu, A Letter to Art is more than an award-winning project. It is proof that when art is rooted in lived experience, it resonates. Quietly. Honestly. And far beyond the moment it is first seen.