What can one student do to create a more inclusive future? Each year the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage invites
6-12th graders in Northeast Ohio to share an act of intolerance they’ve witnessed and detail creative ways they can help end bullying, discrimination and indifference in their community.
The Museum’s 500-word essay contest rewards “upstanders” with $100,000 in prizes. Last year’s Stop the Hate® grand prize winner Justin Bachman earned a $40,000 scholarship. “I wanted to show the world that being different was okay,” wrote Bachman in his essay.
The Solon High School student with Tourette Syndrome, ADHD and dysgraphia founded Honor Good Deeds, an organization that promoting self-acceptance, community and compassion by building leadership skills and a sense of community.
“Stop the Hate inspires students to understand and draw strength from differences amongst their peers,” says Maltz Museum Executive Director Ellen Rudolph. The contest also reinforces the need to become an agent for positive change. “Allowing discrimination to happen without saying or doing anything perpetuates and tacitly condones the behavior.”
“Stopping hate begins with not being a bystander,” wrote Shaker Heights High School’s Taylor Jones in her essay last year. All it takes, affirmed Magnifcat’s Erin King in her winning submission, is “one person to break the silence.”
Deadline for entries is 11:59pm on Thursday, January 29, 2015 for students in grades 6-10 and Thursday, February 26, 2015 for students in grades 11-12. Winners will be determined at a Thursday, April 30, 2015 awards ceremony at Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium.
Stop the Hate®: Youth Speak Out is presented with the support of Cleveland Clinic, Dealer Tire, Lubrizol, the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation and Nordson Corporation. For complete rules and inspiration on how to stand up, speak out and win big, visit www.maltzmuseum.org/stop-the-hate and follow @stopthehateUS on Twitter.
