The Romanian Cultural Institute (RCI) announced on Saturday the winners of the essay, story and composition contest "Eu si Romania" (Romania and I), held from July 1 to August 31 on the theme "Romanian language is my homeland", with 59 Romanian children from 14 countries, historical communities and the diaspora participating.
"The aim of this initiative was to strengthen identity awareness among young Romanians, helping to stimulate cultural involvement in historical communities in which the Romanian language does not have the status of official language", shows a press release sent by the ICR on Saturday.
Most essays came from children from the UK (12), Serbia (8), Italy (8) and Ukraine (7), but there were also participants from Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, USA and Sweden.
The project consisted in awarding prizes to the best pieces, with the words of the great poet Nichita Stanescu as a reference: "talking about the Romanian language is like a Sunday. The beauty of concrete things can only be expressed in Romanian. ... A homeland without a name is not a homeland. The Romanian language is my homeland".
The essays, grouped by three age categories (8-10 years, 11-14 years and 15-18 years), were judged by an independent jury, that decided the winners of the nine prizes (three prizes for each age category, as follows: three first prizes of 500 euros each, three second prizes of 400 euros each and three third prizes of 300 euros each).
"You know my name from Mihail Sadoveanu's fairy tale 'The Magic Grove'. I am Lizuca. Unfortunately I can't have a Patrocle because we travel too much, so that I can spend all my vacations in Romania. My age is the last two digits of my birth year. You guessed it! I am 12 years old. I love traveling and visiting museums. Being born in winter, I love skiing and especially figure skating. But I also like to spend time at home where I read, write, struggle with math problems (especially geometry), play the piano (not as much as I should), draw or bake cookies. I love holidays and enjoy spending time with friends. I really enjoyed participating in this contest. Thank you and I hope you will organize more editions in the future," said Elisabeth Marie Fischer-Dieskau, the winner of the 11-14 age group, from Germany, quoted in the press release.
The essays were evaluated by the jury, composed of Simona Popescu - journalist Radio Romania, Nona Rapotan - teacher, cultural journalist, Bookhub coordinator and Gabriela Toma - writer, program coordinator at the National Museum of Romanian Literature.
The contest "Eu si Romania" is at its second edition and is organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute, through the Department for the Relation with Romanians Abroad.
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