A high school student from Brno won the AAU sponsored Velvet Revolution writing competition receiving a fully-funded Bachelor’s scholarship at the award ceremony on Wednesday.
The competition gathered entries from students aged 18-26 in the Czech Republic and Slovakia for a chance to win scholarships, an internship, and publication writing with the prompt “How Could any Revolution be Velvet”?
“I feel a huge responsibility. I should stand up to the values that I described in the essay. Which, of course, is sometimes a bit challenging.” First prize winner, Nela Kedziorová said.
AAU students won both the second and third places, receiving a masters scholarship and an internship at the non-profit Paměť Národa.
Several AAU administration gave emotional speeches at the award ceremony, recounting their own memories of the revolution.
“[I was there] because I [wanted] to have a better future for my children,” said AAU President Jiří Schwarz. “History repeats itself, so our contest for students is extremely important.”
All participants were gifted a hard copy anthology of each submission following the ceremony. November 17th marks the 35th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia.
