Border Crossing Essay Contest
From Left: Martin Brennan, Elena Gavagnin (First Place), Florance Ma (Honorable Mention), Kaho Ito (Third Place), Nandor Gergely (Second Place), Liliane Koziol. Not pictured: Darko Cotoras.
2012 Essay Contest
The Border Crossing Essay Award is given to three residents who best capture the essence of their I-House experience in a composition. Write about dramatic cross-cultural encounters you have experienced and their impact. Please pick up an application in the Program Office.
The submission deadline for essays is April 2, 2012. The winners are announced, at a special ceremony held during Candlelight Sunday Supper in April. The first place winner will receive $250, second place, $150 and third place, $100.
2011 Essay Contest Winners
First place:
Interior Borders (See excerpt below)
Elena Gavagnin (Italy)
Read full essay (pdf)
Second place:
THE WORLD IN A GRAIN OF SAND
Nándor Gergely (France)
Read full essay (pdf)
Third Place:
Connecting The Lifestyles
Kaho Ito (Japan)
Read full essay (pdf)
Honorable Mentions:
Unexpected discoveries
Darko Cotoras (Chile) Integrative Biology
Read full essay (pdf)
Untitled
Florance Ma
Read full essay (pdf)
Excerpts from Interior Borders
Elena Gavagnin (Italy)
The very big achievement is just understanding that the borders are inside us, because this would imply that we do not have to change the world, but we should just change ourselves.
The experience we are doing here, staying in a foreign country, together with all others foreign countries, is an extraordinary experience, that most people cannot experiment. And it is exactly the kind of strong experience that can really change a person, in his deeply believes. The unique opportunity that I-House offers is to have all the world in the same place at the same moment.
You don't need trains, cars o planes to travel, you just have to do the stairs and rest in the Great Hall, and you are there, in the world. Consider how it is difficult to have all the country leaders sitting at the same table to discuss of world issues, and now think about how it is easy to sit at the same table with people of ten different countries in the Dining Hall? And you can do it all the days, all the year! It like a dreamy-leaders global-meeting one year long! It is something will never happen to them!
The only little detail is that we are not the country leaders. But actually we are even better: we are the future! And since this, we can determine the future of our countries! I don't know how many leaders have had a similar experience, maybe the world would be different, would be better.
But this experience is unique not only because we know people from other countries but also because we know people from our own country. It could seem not so strange, since, obviously, in your own country you meet a lot of people from your own country. But you usually do not meet
them outside of it.
I am italian, and of course I was italian also before coming here, but now when I say I am italian there is a different sense of consciousness. It could seem a paradox but I think I really meet my country here, for the first time.
