Jahdaya Martin, 15, started singing with grandfather John Price in church when she was just a tot. She hasn’t stopped since, performing at Zion AME Church in Camden all the way to auditioning at New York’s famed Apollo Theater. Now Jahdaya’s not only a singer, but a songwriter as well.
Jahdaya was one of many teens who wrote an original work, a song, and then performed it to qualify for a spot in the finals of Delaware Teen Idol, which culminates with a show at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 6, at the DuPont Theatre in Wilmington.
AIDS Delaware puts on the annual competition, and challenges young people to write and perform a piece about topics such as AIDS prevention, teenage pregnancy prevention and more. Auditions are held in Wilmington and Dover and the field is culled down to 18 finalists.
The contest, now in its sixth year, has grown exponentially, according to Frank Hawkins, education manager of AIDS Delaware.
“We started at a high school auditorium and now we’re at the DuPont Theatre,” he said. “We encompass a lot more youth into the program.”
The theme is “Be in the spotlight for the right reasons,” Hawkins explained.
Once students get involved in the competition, organizers stress that they should be living a clean, drug-free, positive lifestyle. They also urge students to educate their peers about positive lifestyles through poetry, music, comedy and other creative outlets.
Dover High School student Melissa Santiago is getting ready for the competition, and the presentation of her poem regarding both HIV/AIDS and pregnancy prevention.
“I thought they were the most important topics that needed to be talked about, so I just picked both of them,” she said.
Santiago started writing poetry in seventh grade as a way to cope with a difficult time in her life. Now she has a book full of poems. The poem for the competition took some time to develop as it was more than a personal story.
“It was hard because any other time I just write about whatever comes to mind,” she said. “But this took me a couple weeks to think about.”
It was difficult, but the message is an important one, she said.
“Everyone should know everything that’s going in their body,” she said.
Santiago would like to be a social worker, while her competitor and fellow Dover High student Jahdaya Martin would like to help people as a pediatrician.
