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On November 8, 2009, the 5th Annual Children of Abraham Peace Essay Contest officially began! The contest is growing, this year including students from Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts and the Sunflower County Freedom Project in Mississippi, in addition to students in the Washington, DC area.
The kick-off was held in Riggs Library in Healy Hall at Georgetown University. The kick-off allows students participating in the essay contest to start thinking about the essay topic more deeply and meet their fellow essayists. Teachers and parents were also in attendance to support their students.
The topic of the 2009-2010 essay is Compassion in Action as exemplified by the leaders of the three Abrahamic faiths. Students were asked to submit an optional one-page personal reflection on the topic prior to the kick-off. Some of their reflections were quite profound:
"[We] seem to be hard wired for compassion, but we must be taught to access it."
– Daniel Roza
"When one is helping someone because they feel compassionate, it can lead to a feeling of pity toward the person being helped…this is where compassion leads to prejudice
and judgment."
– Sobia Ahmad
"Although compassion is easy to feel, it requires great moral strength to act upon."
– Sarah Schwartz
This year, the kick-off allowed students to hear from their peers who have participated in past essay contests. Following an opening prayer by Fr. Kevin O’Brien of Georgetown’s Office of Campus Ministry and an explanation of contest rules from Avideh Shashaani, President of FFC, three of last year’s contest winners offered their own reflections on compassion. Diana Jeang spoke of compassion and Christianity, Muaz Rahman talked about compassion and Islam, and Ezra Wexler spoke to compassion in Judaism.
Highlighting the second part of the essay question, in which students are asked to design a project that embodies compassion, four past Youth Leadership Micro-grant award winners presented summaries of their projects. Andrew Franklin, Laila Handoo, Devika Jaipuriar and Diana Jeang provided inspiration and food for thought to this year’s essayists and explained how applying for Youth Leadership Micro-grants allowed them to bring their ideas to reality.
After a pizza and soda break, the group reassembled for the second part of the kick-off. Ken McNeil, a partner at Susman Godfrey LLP, highlighted Gandhi as an example of compassionate leadership. Wendy Lesko, Executive Director of the Youth Action Project, spoke about ways that young people can make a difference by putting compassion into action.
The afternoon’s facilitator and an always-energetic influence on the students, June Murray Crawford of Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts divided the students into three small groups to further flesh out their ideas about compassion and their potential projects. Diana Chambers of the Chambers Group LLC, Mike Goggin of the St. Vincent Pallotti Center for Apostolic Development, and Wendy Lesko lead the small group discussions. The larger group then reconvened to report on their discussions.
Mike Goggin offered the closing prayer at the end of the afternoon, followed by a YouTube video of "Stand by Me" recorded by artists around the world – a simple summary of the concept of compassion. The students, teachers and parents all left chatting about their ideas and excited to get started. We at FFC certainly look forward to reading their essays and sharing them with you at the awards ceremony in March!
Fund for the Future of our Children runs the annual Children of Abraham Peace Essay Contest in collaboration with Georgetown University’s Office of Campus Ministry and the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The contest offers 10th - 12th grade students the opportunity to explore some topic relevant to expanded mutual understanding between the Abrahamic faith traditions.
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