Language is a challenge to peacebuilding projects and cross-cultural dialogue. It just is. And most often English becomes the lingua franca of the programs, clearly advantaging those of us native speakers. I worked last summer at Project Common Bond, detailed more fully in the post below. The program brings together youth from around the world who have the "common bond" of having lost a family member to an act of terror. They come to the camp to meet other youth from countries as far away from each other as Sri Lanka, Russia, Argentina, and Morocco, among others, to process what they've been through with others who can relate, and to imagine together and work towards a better future. The camp's activities all run in English and most of the counselors and staff are American, however some of the youth have only a basic knowledge of English and rely on chaperone-translators to participate in the more verbal activities.
This year, our amazing dance instructor, Marcia, led the group in participating in a Project Common Bond flash mob (see video at right). All 120+ of us practiced the choreography for day to "Twist and Shout", "Call Me Maybe" and other pop songs. For some, this was great fun, and for others, not as used to shaking their hips, the practices were torture. But everyone did it, and it culminated in a flash mob performance on a hot summer day in Boston with onlookers clapping and taking pictures.
But the truly amazing thing is the large impact it had on the group. This was only my second summer working on the program, but others shared the same observation: This group was a dancing group and they did it all together.
Free time dance party
Every evening during free time, the counselors would set out board games, arts & crafts areas, a foosball table... and turn on the stereo. Without fail, every night turned into the craziest, most fun dance party you've ever seen--with Irish youth teaching Irish line dances and some "Rock the Boat" dance I'm told is done at weddings, conga lines erupting spontaneously, Russian dance classes, and one of our young men from Sri Lanka inevitably finding his way onto a table and creating a makeshift microphone from a salt shaker or whatever he could find. And everyone danced--youth, staff, the whole group.
Marcia told me she thinks of dance as a language, and that in teaching dance, you're teaching a group how to speak to each other through movement. I think she's right. It's not that dance itself is one common language and in fact I saw at PCB the distinct differences between Nigerian and Ossetian dance and between Kandian (region of Sri Lanka) and Palestinian dance. But through the use of dance in practicing for the flash mob, these young people were all learning a set of common phrases, from "the twist" to the moves we learned set to "Peace, Unity, Love... and Havin' Fun". When free time set in and the music was on, they all had a basic vocabulary that got them moving. And from there, it took off. The language gap had been bridged for the group.
PCB handmade puzzles
Beyond the dance, this group was cohesive and really came together as one, trusting each other and opening up, making true connections across national and linguistic boundaries. There were many other crucial factors, from the Dignity Model workshops we led in the mornings, and the Peace In Action sessions, to the incredible drama, arts, sports, music and dance classes after lunch. There was the great care taken by the lead staff, who had put months of meticulous planning into the camp, and the genuine care shown by all of the counselors and other support staff. But I can't help but wonder whether the common language of the flash mob might have been that final magic ingredient to pull it all together, like that extra pinch of salt in a marinara sauce moving it from delicious to the best ever.
Peacebuilding and intercultural programs should never underestimate the power of the arts, and movement in particular, as a major catalyst, enabling real breakthroughs and real change. Sign me up for the flash mob next year.
I've recently been inspired by my work with a summer camp called Project Common Bond for youth who have lost a family member to an act of terrorism or political violence. Youth come together from all over the world and both connect with one another, healing from their losses and are empowered to imagine and work towards a different reality where these acts of violence do not exist. I was incredibly impressed with these young people who had endured the most heinous of travesties--the loss of a loved one and consequently a loss of safety, security and stability. Some had even been the recipients or witnesses of direct violence. And yet, I saw youth from Pakistan, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and the United States among others think creatively together about what they can do to work towards a new reality. I think sometimes what is needed, in addition to role models, is to simply turn it back to the youth and ask "what do you think?" and "what can you do?" since all too often youth voices are marginalized. Instead, we can encourage youth to think about their own power and possibility.
One American 14-year-old related to our group the story of when her teacher had told the class that all Arabs and Muslims were evil and that Islam was a religion of hate. The young woman expressed her frustration at her perceived inability to do anything, recognizing the power dynamics and the fact that this teacher had the ability to fail her in the class. As a group, we brainstormed her options and she outlined steps she could take both in future situations and the conversation she could have with this teacher now that the woman no longer holds the same power over her. One thing this amazing young woman said to me stood out: "You would think that we of anyone [families who lost loved ones in 9/11] would hate, but we don't. We recognize that all people in a group or a religion are not represented by the actions of a few extremists. How could my teacher say that?"
The motto of Project Common Bond is "Let Our Past Change the Future" and I'm a little more confident now that it will...
I just spent
two years in graduate school studying conflict—indicators to predict it,
factors that influence it, ways to resolve it.Almost all conflict literature points to a common crucial
factor: unemployment, and more specifically, youth unemployment. Sure,
unemployment in the United States is nowhere near that of Sudan or the Ivory
Coast. But our 9.8% unemployment
rate is nothing to laugh at and neither is our youth unemployment rate measured
at 19% last July. What would my
student essays have offered as a potential remedy? The obvious answer is
programs that generate jobs, particularly those that provide training to young
people. This is why I was shocked
to hear that the House of Representatives voted last week to eliminate the
AmeriCorps program.
In 2005, I
was an idealistic young graduate looking for work and I wanted to find a job
that served some greater good. I joined
AmeriCorps and worked at a fledgling community center, tutoring kids and
teaching English to new immigrants.
I gained teaching experience and management skills and went on to work
as a full-time salaried staff member there for almost three years after my
AmeriCorps service year was over.
Thanks to the institution of AmeriCorps, providing the center with
energetic free staff members, it grew exponentially and was able to serve a
wider community.
AmeriCorps
is no free ride. As an AmeriCorps
“volunteer”, I earned a living stipend of just $10,500/year, but was provided
healthcare and an education award.
My AmeriCorps training cohort was diverse: We were recent high school
and college graduates, current part-time students, mothers looking to rejoin
the work force and career changers seeking experience. What we had in common:
each of us needed employment and wanted to contribute to American society. We truly embodied the AmeriCorps pledge,
particularly, “I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.”
The programs
AmeriCorps members staff provide afterschool activities and safe spaces for
teens, and they tutor children who would otherwise fall through the proverbial
cracks in our system. They provide
job training and placement for adults and build houses for Katrina
victims. They run food banks, set
up health clinics and counsel survivors of domestic violence.These are programs that strengthen the
fabric of our society. I would
suggest an AmeriCorps-like program as a conflict prevention mechanism for any
of the “fragile states” I studied last year. Is this really an institution we want to remove from our
country?
In January
2011, national unemployment was at 9.8%, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. Some states have been hit much harder, with my home state of
Michigan precariously perched at 11.7%, only recently down from 13%. Factoring in the number of people not
included in these statistics because they are no longer looking for work, and
the many underemployed people getting by on part-time jobs, the numbers are
much higher. Only six months ago,
the Joint Economic Committee reported a 19.6% unemployment rate for young
people ages 16-24. It’s important to again emphasize that this only includes
youth actively seeking employment. This is a dangerous number for a nation
worried about crime and security.
Enter this
new plan to cut all funding to
AmeriCorps.
President Obama
signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act on April 21, 2009, renewing
and expanding the national service program that houses AmeriCorps. Among other
things, the Act approved gradually expanding the 75,000 AmerCorps members then
serving to 250,000. This is
250,000 people who, like me, will find employment strengthening our country’s
underserved communities. Or this is
250,000 additional jobs that could be lost and countless people who will not
benefit from the programs these members would have staffed.
I know many
will argue, “But we have to make spending cuts somewhere.” Yes, there
will be cuts, but cutting one of the major American innovations that provides jobs
at present and supports organizations to grow and generate future jobs is not
the answer. It’s simply faulty reasoning. The positive cycle of growth will be
stopped in its tracks if AmeriCorps is taken out of the equation.
At the end
of 2009, the House voted to continue funding AmeriCorps at $1,149,721,000 per
year. This cost amounts to just 0.03%
of the total federal budget for 2010. In Michigan alone, there are 1,824
AmeriCorps members serving (excluding the many involved in sister programs like
the Senior Corps) and the total cost is only $12,551,137. In terms of “bang for your buck”, this
is a clear success.
As the
Senate prepares to vote on this issue, let us support institutions that further
what we Americans pride ourselves on—The American Dream. AmeriCorps members pledge, “I am an
AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.” Senate, let’s get things done.
This post is from a blog I wrote in 2010 while working on a project with vocational training centers in Liberia.
Monrovia, Liberia
The project is going well. Which is surprising me because I really wasn't confident in it when we left New York despite our months of planning. I’d had so many questions and doubts, most of which centered on whether we were capable of adding any value to the programs here in Liberia. What do we know about vocational training? About vocational training in West Africa? In Liberia in particular? What do we know about market assessments and even about training people here? There were so many unknowns and yet so much trust and so many resources had been put into this project already. The temp video was a rinky-dink production using borrowed cameras, poor lighting, no external mics, our team-members as actors, scripts written by us, and editing in a single 10-hour day by me and Nora. I was tempted to tell the rest of the group that we hadn’t been able to produce the video after all to avoid the embarrassment of showing it here.
But to my surprise the training and the video and our written short guide have been a wildly popular activity here. And participants told us our hands-on activities were “fun”, “useful” and that they’d use them again in the future with the youth. I’m still skeptical of the larger impact we can have but the thing I’ve realized is how dedicated the staff here are to their vocational training programs. And how committed the students are to learning vocations and to succeeding. And this means they want to learn. We’re welcomed more warmly that we could ever expect and everyone listens attentively, waiting patiently for us to finish a section to tell us that we’ve spoken waaaay too fast and they haven’t understood a word!
Today, Charles, who is around 14 or 15 years old, adeptly went through the steps of a practice interview in our role-play activity. He introduced himself to the staff member pretending to be a “Restaurant Manager” and took care to thank him at the end, shaking his hand. He's so motivated to succeed and listened to every word today, synthesizing the information perfectly in the focus group later. Charles has a large scar, close to five inches on his neck and I can’t help but wonder about his past. What was his life like during the war? Is the scar an accident… or a wound inflicted by another human being? What does Charles dream about at night? On the drives each day to vocational training centers, we pass by ruins of houses again and again, with no roofs and half-walls. Many of them have families squatting in them or they’ve been converted into corner stores. We drive by billboards with text: “Grow the food you eat. Eat the food you grow,” “Stop Rape” (with drawings of a man on top of a protesting woman and a large X through it) or “Use treated malaria nets.”
If can't tell, there's a lot of laughter in this picture.
Today was a special day. Vayetown is a small remote village about 45 minutes drive on a pothole-riddled dirt road from Tubmanburg. The vocational training center there has mostly older students and I’ve leaped to the conclusion that this town was heavily hit in the war, which would also account for why so many young adults here have not attended school. (Only those not in the school system are eligible for the VT programs. This is an attempt to address the problem of the thousands of young people who missed years of schooling while living in refugee camps during the war.) We had a great training session, despite some small setbacks—the generator went out and we had to suspend our video showing and jump to a different section of the training until a new generator could be found. It had also taken us an hour longer to arrive than we’d anticipated due to the poor condition of the roads. But the staff and students were receptive and I feel I can safely say we’ve left them with motivation to do a market assessment for their area and improve on their programs. At the end of our training, the director told us the students wanted to welcome us in their special way by performing traditional Liberian dance. While the 140 students from the entire center piled into their large classroom, drummers set up and the dancing began--first, a group of four young women around 14 years old and later three young men of the same age. After the dance (which was amazing) we thanked everyone, exchanged contact information and took some photos. As we started to enter the car, with the music still running through my head, I unconsciously did a few steps of a two-second version of their dance and a few of the girls noticed and started laughing. Nora quickly joined in, and within seconds we had a large crowd and drummers materialized. We did our thang for a few minutes and judging by the faces of our onlookers in the photos, we’ve provided some laughable memories for the students for at least the next few months. My conclusion: My lack of shame was clearly a winning quality today.
This is an excerpt of the Aghla Shabab program episode that aired on Syrian TV on August 14, 2009. (I'm the one on the left not saying anything in this clip.) The video clip features participants, mostly college students from the United States and Syria, and staff from the 2009 United States-Syria Grassroots Diplomacy Program.
