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August/September 2004
Vol. X, No. 3
State winners gather outside the Capital for a day of meetings with their senators and representatives. |
National Peace Essay Contest Winners Announced
Contest focused on reconstructing societies after conflict.
The Institute brought forty-nine of the fifty-two state and regional winners of the annual National Peace Essay Contest to Washington, D.C. this July for five days of intensive discussions on peacemaking, introductions to senior policymakers and diplomats, and visits to some of Washington's landmarks, including the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, many of the students got to visit with their state representative or senator. The program culminated in a banquet held at the Ronald Reagan Building, at which Vivek Viswanathan, of New Hyde Park, N.Y. was awarded first prize for his essay on "Establishing Peaceful and Stable Postwar Societies through Effective Rebuilding Strategy." A student at Herricks High School, Viswanathan received a $10,000 college scholarship for his essay.
National Award winners David Leimbach, Vivek Viswanathan, and Kevin Schaeffer, flanked by Chester Crocker and Pamela Aall on the left and Richard Solomon on the right. |
According to Alison Milofsky, program officer in charge of the essay contest, more than 4,000 students from high schools across the United States and in U.S. territories and abroad participated in this year's contest, writing on the topic of rebuilding societies after conflict.
David Leimbach of Jenks High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma was awarded a $5,000 scholarship for his second-place essay on "Attempts at Sustainable Progress Following Conflict: East Timor and Cambodia." Kevin Schaeffer, a student at the Canterbury School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, won the third-place award of $2,500 toward his college education for his essay on "Political Reconstruction: Planting Democracy and Stability for the Next Generation."
This year's program focused on challenges to peace in the Sudan. The students participated in a comprehensive three-day simulation of the conflict in Sudan, in which each assumed roles as diplomats, government officials, and representatives from nongovernmental organizations. The purpose of the exercise was to encourage the participants to closely examine the process of postconflict reconstruction. The students received briefings on the conflict from several experts, including the Institute's Religion and Peacemaking Initiative director, David Smock. The Sudanese ambassador and a representative from the main rebel group provided their perspectives as well.
Chester Crocker, Institute board chairman and former assistant secretary of state for Africa, also talked to the students about Sudan and gave the program's keynote address on "What It Takes to Be a Peacemaker."
 Board of Directors chairman Chester Crocker addresses the students on what it takes to be a peacemaker; Religion and Peacemaking director David Smock briefs the students about war in Sudan; also briefing students was Raymond Gilpin, professor and academic chair for defense economics at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University. |
First-place winner Viswanathan found the week particularly valuable: "The Awards Week provided an intricate window into the rebuilding of stable societies in the aftermath of conflict from the vantage point of actual international actors. The presence of competing interests in our donor conference to rebuild Sudan contributed to especially vigorous discussions and negotiations, making the simulation all the more intellectually stimulating." The Awards Week, he said, furthered his interest in international affairs and conflict resolution, subjects that he now definitely hopes to study in greater depth during college.
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