"What does the word 'volunteer' mean to you and what is the importance of volunteering? What have you done in the past as a volunteer? What volunteering opportunities do you see in your future?
Students grades 7-12 all over the country participated, and the essays were written in English. There were workshops on writing and about volunteering, since it is not a very familiar concept in this culture. We had a good turn out, considering this was our first year.
We had judges who picked 5 regional winners. Two of my students at my school were regional winners and they got certificates. I was very proud of them and so were their English teachers that I teach with.
Then we had a National Awards Ceremony on June 2nd. This was a big day. We had 3 National Winners that were invited to the awards ceremony at the Peace Corps office in Skopje. The US Ambassador, Gillian Milovanovic was there to present the awards. We had prizes donated and our winners got a very nice brand new mobile phone, a 2 night stay at a classy hotel at Lake Ohrid, a very nice English-Macedonian dictionary, a World Almanac and a framed certificate.
A few local Macedonian newspapers wrote about the Awards Ceremony and Essay Contest and we even made the US embassy (in Skopje)'s website!
http://skopje.usembassy.gov/outstanding_essays.html
This was a lot of hard work that really paid off. We hope that this will become an annual event!
US Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic with the three essay contest winners.
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