Dear ACCESS Alumni, teachers, friends and partners!

We are delighted to announce that Russian ACCESS Alumni Association with support from the English Language Office in the US Embassy is launching a new competition.
This time we are inviting you to participate in the essay competition “Tolerance stories” in honor of the International Day of Tolerance which is held across the world annually on November 16.

Today’s international community is facing a lot of challenges and one of them is intolerance in its different forms of injustice, oppression, racism and unfair discrimination. We would like to invite you to speak up and join us. We believe in importance of promoting mutual-respect, acceptance and correct understanding of other cultures and ways of self expression through sharing the stories of tolerance with your communities. We hope you will help is! Every change starts with a smaller change, and your story might inspire somebody else with ideas and assumptions on how to make our diverse world a safer place for everybody.

We would like to offer you the following topics for your essays:

1. How language diversity influences people’s lives

2. Languages spoken in my class/group/school/college

3. The uniqueness of the place I live in. Specific features of life in your region

4. How is the history of your region reflected in your family

5. Welcome to ….. (your city, region, country). Speak about regional information (geography, history etc.), climate, famous people, traditions, customs, comments from visitors etc.

6. Our family traditions. Are they similar to other cultures?

7. Typical dishes in your national cuisine. Are they similar to other regions or countries?

8. Cultural diversity. Do you apply to your own culture values when judging people from other cultures?

9. Have you ever had culture shock? What was it?

10. Barriers of communication. Did you have any difficulties in your life communicating with other people?

11. Stereotypes. What stereotypes did you base your first impressions about the people upon when you met them first?

12. How people express their feelings and emotions. Does it depend on the region they live? Is it necessary to deal with anger?

13. Your values. What is important to you in your life?

14. Is it difficult to be an adult? What makes you adult? What are you responsible for? How do you feel about that responsibility?

15. Do you belong to any group? Is it easier to belong to a group or to be your own?

16. Do you know your rights and responsibilities? (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child). Are there any rights that you fail to have?

17. Education is a basic human right. Can all children in the world get education?

18. Muslim clothing in schools

19. Animal or a plant which is endangered in your region

20. What is success for you?

21. Communicative Behavior (table manners, etiquette, ethics, attitudes etc.)

The organizing committee of the contest set the following requirements:

1) The essay shall be written in English;

2) The word limit is 300 words;

3) The essay shall be original work of participants.

We are also happy to inform you that authors of 3 best essays will be awarded with honorary certificates and gifts from the English Language Office in the US Embassy.

All the essays shall be submitted by December 1, 2014 via email – [e-mail]. Please specify the subject of the email as “Tolerance stories”.

We wish you good luck and hope to hear from you soon!

Let’s make a change together!

Kind regards,
Adel Zabbarov

President of Russian ACCESS Alumni Association

Дата добавления: 2015-11-13