Iowa City West Student Wins Peace Prize

This is why I have hope for the future... From the Gazette Audrey Keranen is Iowa winner of peace essay contest

IOWA CITY - Audrey Keranen from West High School in Iowa City has won a $1,000 college scholarship for writing the best essay from Iowa in this year’s National Peace Essay Contest, sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

Keranen will be invited to join other state winners on an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in a weeklong education program focusing on international conflict resolution, and compete for national scholarship awards up to $10,000. This is the 20th year that USIP has sponsored the National Peace Essay Contest, which addresses a different issue of war and peace selected by the Institute’s Board of Directors each year.

This year, approximately 4000 students from around the US, including US territories and American students living abroad, researched and wrote essays on the topic of “Youth and Violent Conflict.”

Keranen's essay entry is entitled “Treating Invisible Wounds: Rehabilitating Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka.”

Great going Audrey, keep up the peace work!