After pondering questions such as, “What was God like as a child?” and “What would society be like if forgiveness did not exist?”, ten students on April 3 were selected as the national winners of a creative writing contest organized by U.S. Peace Corps volunteers, the contest’s press release stated.
Winning essays submitted by students from the sixth grade up to the university level will move on to compete on the international stage against entries from nine other countries around the world. Winners will be announced later this month.
Billed as the International Writing Olympics-Ukraine, the first annual writing contest was designed to encourage critical thinking and free expression.
Ukrainian professionals and Peace Corps Volunteers serving throughout Ukraine also administered the contest.
Ukraine national coordinator Melissa Krut said she was very excited by the number of entries. More than 1,500 students from 18 oblasts and 93 schools submitted essays in this year’s contest.
“The imagination and creativity of these students were tested in this competition, and the Ukrainian students certainly rose to the challenge,” said Krut, who is a Peace Corps volunteer.
Winners at the oblast and national level received certificates printed by the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, as well as a booklet of writing ideas financed by the American Councils. National winners will also receive Embassy-donated English books on writing and life in America, as well as books printed by an English language teaching newspaper.
Krut said the competition’s success is due in large part to the cooperation and support of Ukrainian counterparts on every level.
“The enthusiasm that we saw from Ukrainian teachers throughout the country was so encouraging,” Krut said. “We owe a special thanks to the national judges, who took on an especially large and important task.”
The Ukrainian winners are as follows:
- – Masha Romanova, 6th form (Rivne School 15, Rivnenska oblast)
- – Kristiana Katarina, 7th form (Chervonohrad School 13, Lvivska oblast)
- – Anastasiya Senchuk, 8th form (Vyzhnytsia Gymnasium, Chernivetska oblast)
- – Ann Liesova, 9th form (Cherkaska School 17, Cherkaska oblast)
- – Stanislav Plegutsa, 10th form (Vyzhnytsia Gymnasium, Chernivetska oblast)
- – Yulia Pyshko, 11th form (Rivne School 15, Rivnenska oblast)
- – Irene Sandoul, 1st year university (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Dnipropetrovska oblast)
- – Oxana Melashenko, 2nd year university (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Dnipropetrovska oblast)
- – Katerina Golubnitchaya, 3rd year university (LNU Stakhanov Pedagogical Complex, Luganska oblast)
- – Oksana Melnychuk, 4th year university (Chernivtsi National University, Chernivetska oblast)
The Writing Olympics was launched in 2003 by Peace Corps Georgia volunteers to promote creativity, critical thinking, and free expression among students learning English. Within three years Azerbaijan and Armenia joined, creating the Trans-Caucasus Writing Olympics. In 2010 the addition of Moldova bolstered the competition to Eurasian Writing Olympics status, and now the contest is open to all countries being served by Peace Corps volunteers. Countries participating in the 2011 contest include: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Georgia, Moldova, Mongolia, Philippines, and Ukraine. IWO-Ukraine was established by a group of Peace Corps Volunteers in the fall of 2010 to organize Ukraine’s involvement in the competition.
