The Peace Writers

Helene Walterskirchen created her peace literature project “The peace writers” with the sub-project “Youth writes for peace” to create a positively motivated peace literature and to promote a peacefully oriented writer generation. Annually, there is a writing competition around the subject “peace” and the four winners are awarded in a ceremonial act with the peace literature price and a prize money which is founded by Helene Walterskirchen and AdmaCUM e.V.

The project “The peace writers / Youth writes for peace” is a double project. When it started in 2012, it was addressed to adult people. The subject for the first contest was: “My most beautiful peace story”.

In 2013, there were two contests which were addressed to young people between 13 and 19. The subject for the first one was: “Why I do love peace?”, the subject for the second contest was: “My vision of the future: a world without wars.”

In 2014, the contest was addressed to “the peace writers”, i.e. people older than 16 years. The subject of the 2014 writing contest was: “My appeal for peace addressed to the Syrian president al-Assad”. The four winning contributions were sent with an accompanying letter to the Syrian embassy asking to forward them to president al-Assad.

In 2015, the minimum age for participants was decreased to 15 years. By doing so the contest got closer to “Youth writes for peace”. The subject was: “My homage to the UN-ambassador Jane Goodall”.

In 2016, there is a new announcement for the sub-project “Youth writes for peace”, i.e. for young people between 13 and 19 years of age. The subject is based on the current topic of refugee children at German schools and is: “I German – you foreign: stories all around the subject of “acceptance”. Duration of the contest: 1 June to 15 September 2016. The award ceremony will take place in October 2016.