Caring Scholarships – A Platform for Young Voices
Unified Caring Association (UCA) holds scholarship contests throughout the year. As of this month UCA has awarded over 100 scholarships to caring students. These students are all ages across the U.S. These essays are a platform for young voices to express their ideas and experiences which brings more caring into the world. UCA designed this scholarship program to both reward kids for caring while also encouraging their kind heartedness and supporting their advancement in education.
The Essays
UCA’s nationwide and program specific scholarships are created to reward students who write short, 500-word, essays based on the prompt question provided. Some examples are:
-How do you plan to live a life that promotes peace and Unity? How will you create the journey to fulfill this purpose?
-If you were the President of the United States, what would you do to promote Peace and Unity?
-How can caring and kindness be implemented more in your personal life and in your school?
-If you were the “Caring Ambassador” at your school, what would you do to inspire other students to be more caring?
The essay entries are scored on a caring rubric that differs from a traditional academic rubric. This allows students who may not typically be awarded scholarships to be celebrated and awarded for their unique talent of caring and kindness.
Previously Awarded Scholarships
Below is a list of our previous caring scholarship topics. These topics have inspired hundreds of applicants to share their caring thoughts, actions, and creative solutions to help bring more caring into the world today.
- High School Junior & Seniors Scholarship Winners
- Caring Ambassador Scholarship Winners
- USA High School Scholarship Winners
- High School Junior & Senior Scholarship Winners
- Covenant House Hollywood Scholarship Winners
- Pico Youth & Family Center Scholarship Winners
- Northern CA Covenant House Scholarship Winners
- Westchester Secondary Charter School Scholarship Winners
- High School Junior & Senior Scholarship Winners
Who Loves These Caring Scholarships?
School guidance counsellors, teachers and students warmly embrace our scholarship program. As the students write beautiful, unique essays on the topic of caring they engage their caring intelligence and are reminded of the importance of kindness. We find that our scholarship entrants touch hearts with their caring essays. It is so hard to choose the winners!
Want to read an example? Here is one of our previous winners who fills our hearts with joy!
Sarah Cline–
“Genuine kindness is one of the most valuable traits a person can possess. Having real concern for those around you and caring about how they feel makes you stand out among everyone else. Nothing makes me feel better or lifts me up more than when someone goes out of their way to make me feel good and let me know they care about me. It is so important to treat people with kindness and respect, but this unfortunately is something that people forget to do all too often.
I was sixteen years old when, terrified, I was forced to move from my home in a small town in northwest Ohio to the city of Kaysville, Utah. Before this, I had rarely left the safety of the town I grew up in and leaving it for good was a rude awakening. The culture shock was brutal and my shy, quiet nature made it difficult for me to find friends in a place where I felt like an outsider. Starting over at a new high school was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. However, it eventually became one of the best because of the kindness I was shown by a few very special people. They became my friends, made me feel at home, and showed that they truly cared about me. They made me feel included, wanted, and even loved. The kindness they showed me during a really difficult time will stay with me for the rest of my life.
This experience taught me a valuable lesson. Life is hard when you are alone and don’t feel cared about. It makes everything difficult when you are struggling with feelings like these. However, even the smallest things can make a huge difference. A kind word or a simple question can change how someone feels. Caring and kindness can be incorporated more in everyone’s lives and in schools just by people making a decision to be more open, talk to someone, give them a smile, ask them how they are doing, be their friend. Be aware of who may need someone in their life or who may need to be shown some kindness and friendship.
Kindness and caring can be implemented by venturing out of cliques and going out of your way to make someone feel included. It can be implemented by inviting someone to eat lunch with you. It can be done by talking to someone new in class instead of only conversing with the friends you already have. It can be done standing up to a bully and standing up for someone in need. People need to be aware of their peers and be willing to reach out and make new friends. There were many times during that first year at my new school when just one person’s kind personality made my day better. Kind acts, big and small, change lives. It only takes a little mindfulness and a little courage to go out of your comfort zone to be kind and show someone you care.”
Want to read more about UCA scholarship winners and get an extra dose of positivity on you news feeds? Read other caring scholarship blogs, scholarship blogs on gratitude, and or follow us on social media: Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram. We are looking forward to sharing more with you!
Building Empathy
Unified Caring Association (UCA) loves sharing with our caring community. The topics that we love to share often relate back to emotional intelligence. One component that is closely relates to emotional intelligence in empathy. There is just one troubling thing. We often have a hard time describing what empathy is and how we teach it to others. In our search for more information on empathy we have come across some great examples on how to bring more empathy to the world and our caring community. Let’s start from the top…
How can we define something like empathy?
In short, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of one or more people. We can take this definition a step further. We can add that we are then are able to express our feelings and connection with the others. This requires one thing, active listening with our whole being by using our eyes, ears, body language, minds, and more. This is because listening is a strong way to show that you care about the other person and the topic that they are passionate about. Brigette Hyacinth has a good point about listening, “The quality of our listening determines the quality of our influence…[and] listening transmits that kind of respect and builds trust.” (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/empathy-most-important-leadership-skill-needed-today-hyacinth/) Overall, when we listen to others and understand what they are saying when they connect with us we demonstrate that we value others and have empathy for them.
Empathy and Denmark
There have been many studies about how Denmark is one of the happiest and nicest places to live. “This is according to the UN’s World Happiness Report, an important survey that since 2012 classifies the happiness of 155 countries in the world, and that for seven years has placed Denmark among the top three happiest countries on a global level.” (https://www.morningfuture.com/en/article/2019/04/26/empathy-happiness-school-denmark/601/) A big factor in this relates back to how people in Denmark seem to value and incorporate empathy in their lives. This can be seen through the prominent concept of “hygge.” Hygge is a phenomenon closely related to Danish culture; this word is both a verb and an adjective and does not have an English equivalent. “Hygge could be defined as ‘intentionally created intimacy.’ In a country where it gets dark very early in the year, it rains, it’s gray, hygge means bringing light, warmth and friendship, creating a shared, welcoming and intimate atmosphere.” (https://www.morningfuture.com/en/article/2019/04/26/empathy-happiness-school-denmark/601/) This is a fundamental Danish concept that creates a sense of well-being. Interestingly, hygge is becoming a global phenomenon! If you search for hygge on Amazon, you will get about 6,000 results, most of which are books. Instagram has more than Amazon, with #hygge racking up 5.2 million posts and counting! SO, how does a culture foster a concept like empathy so effectively? The answer: By teaching, learning and practicing from the ground up with kids.
Teaching Kids Empathy
Danish schools have a unique curriculum incorporated in their education plans. Students 6-16 years old spend about one hour a week in school dedicated to empathy. These lessons are called “Klassen tid.” This is a fundamental part of learning life skills for these students, much like learning English, science or math for U.S. students. During this hour “…students discuss their problems, either related to school or not, and the whole class, together with the teacher, tries to find a solution based on real listening and understanding. If there are no problems to discuss, children simply spent the time together relaxing and enjoying hygge.” (https://www.morningfuture.com/en/article/2019/04/26/empathy-happiness-school-denmark/601/) This time spent on exploration, problem solving and growth of emotional intelligence helps the students connect with each other through activities that build empathy. Unlike other places in the world, there is no stigma or stress connected to this emotion. The stronger the understanding of empathy the longer and more sincere the student’s relationships are. These enduring relationships correlate to the prevention of bullying and success at work.
Empathy is a Life Skill
As we said before, empathy helps people be successful in their careers. This is because they are able to connect with their peers, are more goal oriented, and adept at team work related tasks. If we look back at Denmark, 60% of tasks in schools are teamwork based. Thus these tasks require the children to understand empathy in order to achieve good results. However, the focus of these results is not to excel over others, but to lift up your teammates that are struggling with the tasks. The success of the team is therefore the goal that everyone is striving for. It is because of the students’ skills in empathy that Denmark is often touted as one of the best places to have a career in Europe.
Empathy is then coupled with the viewpoint that competition is with yourself and not with others. Instead, Danes practice the culture of motivation to improve and the measurement is exclusively in relation to themselves. This is vastly different from the prominent mentality in the U.S. where the goal is to beat the other person and to strive for a win even if it is at the cost of your peers. “The Danes give a lot of space to children’s free play, which teaches empathy and negotiation skills. Playing in the country has been considered an educational tool since 1871.” (https://www.morningfuture.com/en/article/2019/04/26/empathy-happiness-school-denmark/601/) Most of this is achieved through collaborative learning. This style of learning involves bringing together children with various strengths and weaknesses in different subjects. The teams of students then help each other with their studies by working together on various topics and projects. This format teaches the kids that they need each other to be successful and to connect they will need empathy. Jessica Alexander comments that, “Many studies show that when you explain something to someone…you not only learn the subject much better than you would do by memorizing it yourself, but you also build empathy skills which are further strengthened by having to be careful about the way the other person receives the information, and having to put oneself in their shoes to understand how learning works.” (https://www.morningfuture.com/en/article/2019/04/26/empathy-happiness-school-denmark/601/)
The results are echoed by Avery Konda, who recently tried to explain the concept of empathy to kids. After trying to talk with children and pull out responses from them (which fell short of what he was looking for), he began to play with the kids. Through this play time with toys he helped the children discover deeper meanings of empathy. Konda concluded, “Students learn more from gamified activities that allow them to learn skills through application, more than they do through PowerPoints and traditional teaching…[They] take away more when they’re required to live and breathe the topic of conversation.” (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-empathy-most-important-skill-world-today-avery-konda/?trackingId=ltUkZUWiNiFJLSRQ45YbyA%3D%3D) This is fascinating for all of us who are trying to excel in our careers, and for those that are raising children. If we all strive to listen closely to conversations with others and practice our teamwork skills, we can begin to strengthen our empathy skills. Building empathy takes time and consistent practice. If we look at how Danish culture has developed, we can begin to apply more empathy to our daily lives and continue to create a more caring world.
Want to read more about UCA and get an extra dose of positivity on you news feeds? Read our other blogs on caring, empathy, how emotions shape your heart, and follow us on social media! (Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.) We are looking forward to sharing more with you!
Themes from Essays – Gratitude, The Little Things Count
gratitude