Sonia Gupta, Student of IB Yr2 won the second prize for the essay competition "Service above Self" organized by the Rotary Club of Singapore.

This award has been instituted as “K.S Mehta" award for the Interact Clubs. She won $1000 cash prize for the GIIS Interact Club and was felicitated by the Minister, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan on 2nd April 2008. This ceremony was attended by Mr. GSS Rao, Mr. Kaustubh Bodhankar and Prabha Rao. Sonia gave a speech pertaining to her essay and was applauded for her generous donation to Singapore Association of Visually Handicapped through GIIS Interact Club.

Given below are excerpts from her essay:

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”- Albert Einstein.

What Albert Einstein said is so true! Everyone lives but those who do something beyond what a normal man does is who actually lives a truly meaningful life. Yes, many a times that love for yourself is broken and needs to be repaired but speaking for the majority every man is fond of himself. What is self? The person himself with all his pleasures, joy, sorrows, and all emotions constitute the self. We all do services for ourselves and for even that want something in return.

Service above self is moving out of the isolated island, looking beyond and ‘seeing’ other people. The idea of living for yourself is warped. ‘You give but little when you give off your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give’- Khalil Gibran in ‘The Prophet’. Also the work done by one man has an effect on the lives of every man in his vicinity and beyond. This is like when a stone is thrown in a pond and the first ripple creates further ripples in the water. ‘Service above self’ is the only way by which the world will be rid of all the problems we face today and we will be able to escape the ‘chakravyuh’ we have found ourselves in, today .

There have been so many men and women who have lived for others and devoted their entire lives looking after the well-being of those who can’t do that for themselves. Every year there are men and women who win Nobel Prizes for various causes. Even when they achieve remarkable feats in scientific and technological fields they are serving the society. Some get recognition and others don’t but that is not their goal….All they want is a smile on the faces of the people they help. Whether they are environmentalists or humanitarians or animal activists their goal is the same- Help others! Mother Teresa revolutionised and defined the term ‘help’ when she reached a foreign country and strived to serve mankind.Others in recent times to win this Nobel prize and were recognised for their contributions to man kind were men like Kofi Annan, United Nations member, Shirin Ebadi, for her efforts for democracy and human rights and just last year, in 2007, Albert Arnold Gore JR. We, the next generation have a duty to follow in their footsteps and find new ways to help our world become a better home. We have to do our part to convert Earth from a house to a home for every man on Earth.

This is our world and we have to preserve it for the generations to come.