Peace Poster & Essay Competitions

Lions International Peace Poster and Peace Essay Competitions

2024-25 contest theme: ‘Peace without Limits’

Contact details

Key information

The theme of this year’s Lions International Peace Poster provides young people (aged 11-13) with the opportunity to express their visions of peace through being connected with one another.

Students ages 11, 12, or 13 as of November 15 are eligible to participate in the International Peace Poster and Peace Essay Contests.

Peace essay contest

Created to give an opportunity for visually impaired young people to express their feelings of peace, the International Essay Contest is a staple of Lions clubs around the world. Lions work with local schools and area families to identify young people who are interested in participating and who could benefit from this program. One grand prize winner will receive an award and US$5,000.

Each essay must be submitted with a completed entry form. Essays must be no longer than 500 words in length, submitted in English, typed in black ink and double-spaced.

Peace poster contest

For over three decades, Lions clubs around the globe have been sponsoring a very special art contest in schools and youth groups. More than four million young people from 100 countries worldwide have taken part in the contest.

Creating peace posters gives children everywhere the chance to express their visions of peace and inspire the world through art and creativity. The young artists are free to use a variety of art mediums. They are encouraged to portray their life-experiences and culture in responding to the theme.

Every Lions Club is encouraged to engage with young people in their community to sponsor a Peace Poster contest entry.

Purchasing a Peace Poster pack

Lions clubs need to order a Peace Poster pack to enter the contest. Peace poster kits may be purchased from the MD105 head office (available from 15 January to 1 October). The Peace Poster kit and Essay Poster kit each cost £15.00 plus postage.

Each kit contains:

• Official club contest guide and rules
• Official school or youth group contest guide and rules
• Participant flyer to duplicate and give to participating students to take home
• Sticker to place on the back of the winning poster
• Certificates for the contest winner and school or youth group

Peace Poster judging

Each poster is judged on originality, artistic merit, and expression of the theme. Entries advance through several judging levels: local, district, multiple district, and international.

All district winners need to be received at Lions Clubs International (MD105) British Isles office by 1 December. An overall multiple district winner is then selected, and submitted for the international judging stage.

At the international level, judges from the art, peace, youth, education, and media communities select one grand prize winner and 23 merit award winners.

Winner of 2023-2024 theme ‘Dare to Dream’

Thank you to all the entrants of this year’s Peace Poster and Peace Essay Competition.

The Peace poster competition was won by Isabella Golez Age 12, sponsored by Bexhill Lions of District 105SE

Winner of the Peace Essay 2023-2024 theme ‘Dare to Dream’

Erica June Steel aged 13 with her Peace Essay ‘Dare to dream’ sponsored by Milton Keynes Stony Stratford Lions Club of District 105A

Depending on the location of punctuation Dare to Dream can be said with negative connotations, however it is absolutely critical to dare to dream. Without the act of doing so we wouldn’t have had great achievements like climbing mount Everest, circumnavigating the world or landing on the moon. All of the above and many more come from one or more people sitting down, and daring to dream.

Like many things in life Daring to dream can often start with a What if, “what if there was a form of airborne transport?” Led to the invention of Airplanes, “what if man kind could set foot on the moon?” Led to Apollo eleven and humans on the moon. However, daring to dream can also sometimes result in catastrophe, Hitler dreamt of a world without Jews and then we had the holocaust and World War 2. Putin dreams that he will rebuild the Soviet Union and look at the conflict in Ukraine. Catastrophic daring to dream doesn’t always stem from fascist leaders. As an example, in 1986 the space shuttle challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after take-off those seven lives wouldn’t have been lost if humans hadn’t dreamt of being in space.

Yet despite all the Pros and cons of daring to dream so much good could be done if mankind did it a little more. With a little more determination, selflessness, purpose and more than anything with the rest of humanity, nature and planet earth at the centre of their hearts.

Winner of 2022-2023 theme ‘Lead with Compassion’

Harini Uthayakumer, sponsored by Hatch End Centennial Lions won the British Isles national contest. The 13 year old’s poster was one of ten submitted by Graveney School.            

Peace Essay Winner of 2022-2023  theme ‘Lead with Compassion’

Dalyzie Simpson, sponsored by Milton Keynes Stony Stratford Lions, who has just turned 14 years of age.

Lead With Compassion

Why should a leader be compassionate? ” You should not count your chickens before they hatch!” If you were a leader, you cannot just assume that your association know what they are meant to be doing, referring to “You should not count your chickens before they hatch” you do not know if all those chicken eggs will hatch so being the leader, you should be compassionate about leading your troop and they should be led by their leader with compassion without cutting any corners. If you com1t your chickens before they hatch, you are cutting corners by not waiting for them to hatch.

“Show the way to your fellow committee” Lead your people down the right path. A leader should be compassionate about everything they want their followers to believe, therefore they shall find a new leader and someone who is more compassionate about everything they say.

People who are followers should want to follow you as their leader because your compassionate about your beliefs and you should want others to obey you. If you were not compassionate about having to lead, your followers would not want to follow you and they would not want to support your beliefs if your feelings were not too strong about a certain topic. Make people of the public support you with your ambitions, hopes and dreams. Help your community work to their full potential and to their best abilities, further more you shall be able to help more and more people because the more people that follow you the more they shall spread the word about your leadership and how compassionate you are.

Let’s take the Prime Minister role, if you lead the public to believe your actions are not considerable of being worthy of becoming a Prime Minister, the public and media will discriminate you and feel hatred towards them because they betrayed the population via there inconsiderate behaviours of their Prime Minister, so they will not support what the Prime

Ministers decisions are because of their actions. The public will certainly have lost hope in their Prime Minister and how compassionate they feel towards their Prime Minster. However, leading the public with compassion and pleasant honours, the Public will listen and understand how their Prime Minister will be an enjoyable leader.

A leader should be compassionate about what they are leading others to believe because otherwise, no one will want to be led by their leader. Supporting others to their best abilities makes an incredible leader. That sums up the question that was mentioned at the start. Lead yourself to be compassionate to make a good impression on others! You shall then become a better person.

Dayzie Simpson – 448 words

Hi, I have no vision at all, including not being able to see light or dark, nothing and my condition is FND and i touched typed this.

Winners of 2021-2022 theme ‘We are all connected’

Thank you to all the entrants of this year’s Peace Poster and Peace Essay Competition.

Peace Poster Winner Martha Gilson

Martha said “peace to me is the understanding of everyone in harmony”

Martha Gibson (aged 12) sponsored by Ross on Wye Lions Club  – District CW

Peace Essay Winner George Dukas

The winner of the Peace Essay Competition is George Dukas (aged 13) sponsored by Hemel Hempstead Lions Club in District A

Whoever we are we share a connection with others. We were all born into a family whose branches have spread over the years, some more than others.  We connect with our thoughts and beliefs with other groups of individuals yet we are unique and no two people, even identical twins are exactly the same. Life gives us many experiences and challenges that affect our being and those around us. We move areas, we see things our families don’t and we react in different ways. As we age the world grows smaller by visiting places outside of our circle. We gain new and different skills which enhance the person we are. We learn some lessons and modify our actions yet sometimes we can’t accept the change All of this is dependant on communications that keep us connected. Speech is the most effective tool as a voice to share. Telephone, social media in its many modes, television and the internet mean connections can be instant and over long distances. The world has become smaller even with space flight. But it is the connection of people together, close and familiar that mean the most. Spoken work is good but a look, a smile, a touch that shows someone understands and cares about another can bring such calm and peace. Empathy with another, an act of kindness towards the needy, putting yourself in their shoes goes a long way to showing the world at its best. The feeling of belonging, of not being alone is the unsurpassed. If we look towards peace in the world, doesn’t all of this mean one thing. Whoever we are and whatever we are we are not alone, we are definitely connected in some way. A huge family of humans who are different but not and who have the ability to communicate with each other, to have empathy and to make their living a better ideal. Lets join together and succeed regardless of colour, religion or language and by or connections work thorough our differences.

The global winner of the Lions International Peace Essay 2019-2020 was Joseph Critchlow, sponsored by the City of Liverpool Lions Club

The Spring 2020 LION Magazine features Joseph Critchlow (page 25):

• Link to Flip magazine
• Link to PDF Download

Global winners

• Current and previous winners of the global Peace Essay contest: https://www.lionsclubs.org/en/peace-essay
• Current Peace Poster winners from around the world: https://www.lionsclubs.org/en/peace-poster-winners
• Grand Prize Peace Poster winners since 1988: https://www.lionsclubs.org/en/start-our-approach/youth/peace-poster/grand-prize-winners