Sparta 13-year-old wins Mahatma Gandhi award

SPARTA — On October 5 Geoffrey Doubleday, age 13, of Sparta, was honored in Princeton by the Association of Indians in America (AIA) for his response to the follow writing prompt: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.” These words were spoken by Gandhi in 1917 and were the inspiration for a writing contest open to all middle and high school students in New Jersey. The contest was sponsored by the AIA South-Chapter. The contest was introduced to school teachers last march and the deadline for submission was in June. The winners were notified in September. Presented as a language arts assignment by seventh grade Sparta Middle School teacher, Amy Del Coro, Geoffrey choose to write a song to express his understanding of Gandhi’s famous words. In addition to writing the lyrics, Geoffrey also composed music to accompany the song. He subsequently recorded the song and entered the recording and lyrics into the competition. Since then, Geoffrey has performed his song for his peers at the middle school and, most recently, he performed at the 2008 celebration of Gandhi’s 139th birthday at the Friends Center at Princeton University. His song entitled “A Different View” includes the following lyrics: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind. It’s all about what you put in your mind. So go outside and take a breath of fresh air and come back later. Come back and have a different view of this world.”