in Collaboration With
United Nations Information Centre,
for India and Bhutan
in Collaboration With
United Nations Information Centre,
for India and Bhutan
[ Age 14-18 years ] Word Limit 500
[ Age 19-25 years ] Word Limit 750
The Event for Category 2 will be conducted in two phases.
Phase I – Ideation as an Essay : In the first part we propose to ask the participants to look around their immediate living environment - their community or neighborhood - and identify a human problem about which they feel highly concerned. The problem MUST be related to the community or neighborhood as a whole or a group within the community and not an individual . They will be required to write an essay covering three broad aspects as follows :
The participant authors must elucidate the problem itself explaining why they perceive the particular issue or phenomenon as a problem.
Next they must analyze the problem to identify what in their personal view is the real cause of the problem. The essay must identify the lack of a human value or values which is the root cause of the problem and ideally also relate it to one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) of the UN.
As a last step the participant authors would be required to suggest an innovative solution which they would like to deploy to help resolve the problem. The intervention must be innovative and possible to implement through their individual or peer group effort. The intervention could be a novel strategy, an instrument or a device which could be innovatively deployed by the participant or could be an innovation of the author. They would be asked to state the resources they would need to successfully implement the suggested solution. The project should be such that the grant from the Heartfulness Youth Innovator Program can get them to the stage of take- off and seek further funding.
The jury will decide top ten winners on the basis of the ideation of the problem and the solution conceptualized by the author participant.
Shri Ram Chandra Mission is a non-profit educational and spiritual service organization. It has been promoting heart-based living through meditation as a means to universal peace and harmony for over 75 years since its inception in 1945. It is one of 1600 NGOs associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information. The All India Essay Writing Event had been the flagship event of Shri Ram Chandra Mission ( SRCM ) for nearly three decades and was organized in partnership with United Nations Information Centre for India and Bhutan ( UNIC ) for several years since 2005 reaching out to over 25,000 institutions in India. The event was renamed as the HEARTFULNESS ESSAY EVENT in 2019 and was launched globally for the first time in 2021 in collaboration with UNESCO MGIEP ( Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development ). The event has been successfully and continuously running since 1993.
Youth is a time of great possibilities. It is a period in life filled with opportunities waiting to be realized, provided you are mindful of them and are willing to strive heartfully for your holistic growth. While education helps us to develop our physical and intellectual capabilities to their optimum extent, and prepares us to thrive in a competitive world, there is one aspect of our development that does not often receive the attention due to it – the development of our inner Being.
Without the synchronous development of body, mind and heart our evolution as human beings remains incomplete. It is therefore balance, in addition to excellence, that you must strive for - the balance between mind and heart, the outer and the inner, and, between thinking and feeling.
Through the Heartfulness Essay Event, we invite you to tap into your inner space, tune in to the soft voice of the heart that never fails to guide and inspire and, express in words your experience related to the theme of this year’s Event. We encourage you thus to begin the practice of referring to the heart more and more.
Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish
Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Telugu
Last date of submission 30th October 2022
Documents for Participants
a. Submit your entries as a participant through the "Submit your Essay" option on our website only. There is no charge for participation.
b. Please select any ONE of the 15 optional languages to write your essay. If you submit essays in multiple languages you will lose the eligibility to participate.
c. All entries must be on A4 size sheets. Essays may be handwritten in black or blue ink or computer typed in the relevant prescribed script for each language. Download Guidelines for Submission.
d. You will be required to fill a Participant Information Form with mandatory and optional fields.
e. You must conform to the authorized word limit for your category. Please mention the total number of words in your essay after the concluding paragraph.
f. The word limit for Category 1 is 500 and Category 2 is 750 and must be strictly adhered to.
g. Submitted entries must not bear any appeals, illustrations or slogans.
h. You have the option to carry out research on the theme as it is not an on- the- spot competition. However, all submitted stories must necessarily be your original work and references or quotations therein must be duly acknowledged. Plagiarism from books or internet will be viewed unfavorably.
i. The evaluation of all submitted entries will be carried out by a jury for each of the languages on the basis of the evaluation criteria.Download evaluation criteria.
j. To fulfill the purpose of this Event, the story must reflect your personal experience or be based on the experience of one of your close relatives, friends or associates which in some way also impacted or touched you. Stories based entirely on a narrative copied from books or internet will not be considered for recognition.
k. All awards will be subject to the sole discretion of the jury and their decision will be final.
l. The intent of the information provided in the English version of the Information Leaflet and flyer shall prevail over all other translated versions.
m. Checklist of documents before submission of the essay online.
I.Soft copy of your Age Proof. (pdf/jpg format) (Max size 1 mb)
II.Soft copy of your essay saved as a single PDF file. (Max size 3 MB)
n. Please make a note of your Enrollment no shared on the screen after you upload and submit essay for further reference.
o. To fulfill the purpose of this Event, the thoughts expressed by authors of Category 1 must be their original ideas giving expression to how they personally relate to the topic. Similarly, the problem identified and discussed by authors of Category 2 in their essay must be a real life situation and not imaginary.
Entries must be submitted by participants only on our website in the prescribed format by the given last date. Essays received through email or post will not be considered.
A Winner and a Runner- up will be selected in each of the 15 authorized languages in both the categories. In addition to a Winner's certificate all winners will each get a gift coupon to buy products worth Rs 10,000/- All ranked as Runner-up will receive a certificate and will each get a gift coupon to buy products worth Rs 5,000/-
Certificates with Rank : Essays ranked from third to the tenth position in each of the 15 languages and both categories will be awarded e-certificates stating the rank.
Merit Certificates : An E- Merit Certificate will be awarded to the 10% entries shortlisted by the jury for the final round of selection in each of the 15 languages for both the categories.
Certificate of Participation : E-Certificate of Participation will be awarded to all participants who fulfill the participation criterion as per the guidelines.
Some participants may be required to undertake an interview by the jury on telephone or a video call as a final round of selection for the top awards. The jury will have the discretion to accept or disqualify any of the submitted essays and their decision will be final.
