“We Will Hold Out and Revive by All Means”: My Ukraine Essay Contest From the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation Ends
The My Ukraine essay contest, held by the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, has come to an end. This year, the competition was scaled up and held nationwide. The Foundation received almost 4,000 essays, which is a record number!
As every previous year, the contest began on the International Day of Peace, 21 September. During more than two months, upper-form school pupils, first-year college students, and teachers from all over the country sent their creative written works for the competition.
The winners of the contest will be announced by 21 December 2023 on the website of the Museum of Civilian Voices (https://civilvoicesmuseum.org).
Students who will be named as the contest winners will receive tablet PCs, mobile phones, and smartwatches. The authors of the best essays among teachers will receive external memory drives. Those teachers who inspired their prize-winning students for the first place will be awarded with Power Banks.
Each essay submitted to the contest is full of pain from wartime experiences, full of love for the country, and faith in Victory and peace. Here are just a few quotes from the authors.
“We must help our Motherland in any possible way to bring victory closer. “Battle on and win your battle – God Himself will aid you,” Taras Shevchenko wrote. We will hold out and revive by all means, because Ukrainians are unbreakable and indomitable,” say the lines from the essay of 18-year-old Viktoria from Kakhovka in Kherson region.
“I am sure that we will win and rebuild everything that was destroyed and ruined. Ukrainians always had to fight for their will. That is why we can confidently say that freedom will again prevail on Ukrainian land, and no enemy will defeat us,” run the lines from the essay of 13-year-old Veronika from Vorobiyivka in Odesa region.
“We have made the most difficult journey in life. And now I know the price of will, I know how it smells. It is the smell of the steppe in Sumy region. I know the colour of freedom. It is the colour of grey clouds and pink setting sun. I know the melody of freedom. It is a silence, which still sounds like a warning bell in my heart. I bow to every Ukrainian who gave me the freedom to be a citizen of Ukraine!” wrote about the rescue from the occupation teacher Olha Ivanivna from Prymorsk, Zaporizhzhia region.
All the essays submitted to the contest will become part of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation – the world’s largest archive of stories from Ukrainian civilians about their life during the war, which now has more than 90,000 stories. The best texts will be presented to the world community.
Share your story about the war on the Museum’s portal https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/ or via the toll-free hotline 0 (800) 509 001.
