NRI, student Vivek Viswanathan of N.Y. Wins Top US Essay Contest

 

New York
Vivek Viswanathan
Establishing Peaceful and Stable Postwar Societies Through Effective Rebuilding Strategy
Herricks High School
New Hyde Park, NY

Vivek Viswanathan, first-place winner from New York, is presented with his award from U.S. Institute of Peace president Richard H. Solomon at the awards banquet in Washington, D.C

 

WASHINGTON, June 25, 2004
Suresh Gupta

Vivek Viswanathan of New Hyde Park, N.Y. was awarded first prize in this year's National Peace Essay Contest (NPEC), sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

A student at Herricks High School, Viswanathan received a $10,000 college scholarship for his essay titled "Establishing Peaceful and Stable Postwar Societies Through Effective Rebuilding Strategy." In announcing the winner at the Institute's annual NPEC awards banquet on June 23, Institute president Richard H. Solomon commented on the high caliber of all the essays, noting that their authors "are already extraordinary ambassadors of peace.

David Leimbach of Jenks High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma was awarded a $5,000 scholarship for his second-place essay on "Attempts at Sustainable Progress Following Conflict: East Timor and Cambodia.

Kevin Schaeffer, a student at the Canterbury School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, won the third-place award of $2,500 for his essay on "Political Reconstruction: Planting Democracy and Stability for the Next Generation"

More than 1,000 students from American high schools across the United States and in U.S. territories and abroad participated in this year's contest, writing on the topic of rebuilding societies after conflict. In his essay, Viswanathan drew upon the 1947 U.S. Marshall Plan for post-World War II Europe as a successful example of post-war reconstruction and Somalia of the early 1990s as an unsuccessful model. He argued that to be effective, reconstruction efforts should be tailored to the specific post-war situation, obtain a large commitment of resources and assistance from the international community, and involve "a nation's own people in a way that allows them to ultimately control their destiny and that eventually provides a clear exit strategy for international actors.".

Vivek is a junior at Herricks High school in New Hyde Park, New York. He is co-editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, and serves on the executive boards of both the Student Government and the World Affairs Club. He is also a member of the varsity basketball team and a trombonist in the jazz band. A three-time national finalist in the National History Day competition, Vivek recently completed a paper entitled, "Fallout From Reykjavik: Reagan's Stand and the Fate of Arms Control," for which he interviewed former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Vivek hopes to pursue a career in law or politics upon graduation from college.

Viswanathan, Leimbach, and Schaeffer joined the other 49 state-level winners in Washington, D.C. from June 19 through June 24 for an Institute of Peace program that introduced them to senior U.S. government and foreign embassy officials, members of Congress, and other experts involved in the making of American foreign policy. They assumed the roles of diplomats, government officials, and members of the international community in a special three-day problem solving simulation focusing on the conflict in Sudan. The purpose of the exercise was to encourage the participants to closely examine the process of post-conflict reconstruction.