6th Annual RI 8th Grade Gandhi Essay Contest 2015-2016

3rd, 2nd & 1st place Essay Winners

Rebecca Franko, Anna Schnorr, Zoe Petrovas, Alexis Weiler, Bhagyashree Behera

2015-2016 Contest Winner Zoe Petrovas from St. Michael’s Country Day School, Portsmouth, RI

Video of 2016 Gandhi Essay Ceremony

Purpose:

The purpose of the Gandhi Essay Contest, which was established in 2010, is to celebrate the life teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and to encourage Rhode Island students in Grade 8 to think critically about, personally connect with, and be challenged by his legacy of nonviolence.

 

Essay Prompt for 2015-16:

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”

Gandhi Essay Contest 2015-2016 Flyer

Relevant RI Common Core Standards

Gandhi brought his wife and children from India to South Africa in 1898 on a ship called the Courland. A crowd of white South Africans protested the ship’s arrival and threatened violence to the dark-skinned immigrant passengers. When Gandhi disembarked, he was surrounded and violently attacked by the angry mob threatening to lynch him. He narrowly escaped and when asked to identify his attackers so they could be arrested and punished, Gandhi refused.

Throughout his life Gandhi chose love and truth over violence, never retaliating with violence against his attackers. Today, we face numerous problems from gun violence and police shootings to terrorism, war, and refugee problems. Rather than approaching these problems with violent retaliation, Gandhi would choose constructive nonviolence and forgiveness.

Sponsors:

The contest is an interdisciplinary collaboration among the URI Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies and the URI School of Education.