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Second Place – Aishini Thiyagarajan (Winston Churchill High school) Aishini Thiyagarajan is currently a junior at Winston Churchill High school, where she serves as president of the Homeless Outreach club which promotes volunteerism in the D.C community. She also participates in the debate team, the Model United Nations team, and the forensics team.She has also led a Study Circle for her Sunday school which explored different religions. In her spare time Aishini loves reading books, learning Indian classical dancing (Bharatnatyam), and immersing herself in world culture, music, food and ethnic clothing. For the future, Aishini would love to study abroad in any corner of the world! Essay Abstract: In his pilgrimage to Malta, Pope John Paul II said, “ Look to the future with hope, and set out with renewed vigor to make this new millennium a time of solidarity and peace, of love for life and respect for God’s creation.” These beautiful words from the Pope tell us that in hope for a beautiful and prosperous future, mankind is required to take responsibility for all his actions in the present day. The interactions that we have with nature and the benefits we gain from it, must serve not only our needs but our future generation’s needs as well. Humanity has been given the privilege to possess a wonderful gift, the Earth, which must be passed on with great care. It is quite obvious that our world unity is hindered by war, poverty, disease and most of all a lack of concern for the environment. This indifference towards the care for nature is caused by the corruption in our morals. Without our morals to guide us, we run the risk of misusing the responsibility and power that we have been given to take care of the world. Morality requires us to exercise proper dominion over all of God’s creation, so that everyone and everything can benefit. The stewardship over nature must be based on the fact that before taking care of our Earth, we must understand our relationship with it. All the Abrahamic faiths guide us in cultivating the proper relationship with the Earth. They advise us on how we should use our power carefully. They teach us the importance of maintaining our morals and ethics if we want to be God’s helpers. They remind us of the trust that God has in us, when he put us in charge of taking care of his creation. Most importantly, the religions stress the importance of the unity that we must have, if we wish to take any actions. None of us are stewards alone, rather we become stewards of the environment when we act together in taking care of the Earth. Stewardship requires time, devotion, respect, trust and love. Mankind has been blessed with all these things so that he can take care of everything around him. By understanding the stance of the Abrahamic faiths on humanity’s role with the environment, we can all learn about what we must do in becoming stewards of the Earth. On the value of the Children of Abraham project: “Thank you so much for the incredible experience and opportunity! I truly had an amazing time during which I met so many wonderful people. I really enjoyed meeting my fellow essayists and all of us are already exchanging messages and emails as we have gotten closer. I am ecstatic to return next year and also very excited to work on my micro grant project! I hope to get my brother involved with the FFC as I have grown and learned so much throughout the process and would like him to have the same experience I had.”
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