Olive Branch Church · Essay Competition
2017 · Prize: NPR 2,50,000 · Winner: Rabina Shrestha
"Faithful Stewardship," the 2017 competition, was designed to complement the church's newly launched Food Pantry and weekly volunteer programme. The competition asked young writers to reflect on what it means to steward well — not just material resources, but time, influence, relationships, and opportunity.
The timing of the competition — April to July — allowed students to submit during a less pressured part of the academic calendar, and entries reflected the thoughtfulness that extra time allowed. 88 entries were submitted from across the district.
For the first time, the competition was promoted through local radio and three WhatsApp community groups, significantly widening participation beyond the church's immediate network.
Responsible and faithful care of resources, relationships, time, and community.
Writers were encouraged to approach the theme through personal narrative, theological reflection, argumentative essay, or a combination of these forms.
Word limit: 800 – 2,000 words · Language: English or Nepali
All submissions are reviewed by a panel of church elders, educators, and community representatives. Entries are scored across four weighted criteria:
Rabina Shrestha, aged 20, was a nursing student who had been volunteering at the church's monthly homeless shelter meal service since 2015. Her essay explored how she had learned stewardship not from a textbook but from watching her mother carefully divide their household's modest resources so that there was always something left to give to the neighbour. "Stewardship," she wrote, "is not what we do with what we have. It is what we do with what we have left over." The judges unanimously selected her essay as the winner.