Project Description

The project will be based upon the following objectives:

1) Students will compare and contrast the cultural similarities and differences between the Middle East and Pennsylvania by studying and discussing excerpts from the book, Snow by Orhan Pamuk. This will happen in a cyber class using skype and the moodle educational platform. The goal of this class is to promote world peace, and discourage school violence.

2) Pennsylvania students will travel to NYC to participate in a cultural forum on teenage violence and conflict resolution in Western and the Middle Eastern cultures.

3) Parents will be encourage to attend the summit to support their teens’ initiative.

I will be teaching this as a cyber course at Pennsylvania Leadership Cyber School www.palcs.org. The cost of this course will be covered by Pennsylvania residents enrolling one semester in The Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School. New York City Area residents are also welcome to register. They have no enrollment requirement. There is more information at...

http://questgarden.com/54/03/6/070731094648/

Please email me about your interest in this project.

pparris@palcs.org

Mr. Parris

Project Description

The Old City of Hebron is a highly disputed territory at the heart of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. International aid has focused on critical conflict intervention as well as medical and nutritional assistance. The children of the Old City, particularly the boys, are exposed to disruptive checkpoints, detentions, toxic tear gas, extended curfews, and physical searches. These affronts erode bodily sovereignty, both mentally and physically, which is vital to the development of healthy self-esteem. Israeli settlers and The Israeli Defense Force deny the boys of Hebron education, medical care and gainful employment. These conditions make them easy recruits for violent militias, which often condemn the boys to imprisonment, torture, and even death. This situation robs Palestinian society of productive citizens, and reinforces negative stereotypes of young Arab men. Roads are systematically destroyed and blockaded for the development of segregated roads and settlements that have been declared illegal by international law. This isolation has led to resentment and hopelessness in Hebron.

We promote the concepts of social cohesion and non-violent conflict resolution among the youth of Hebron in a secure and stable environment. This will be achieved through positive peer-oriented exercises such as self-expressive art projects, critical thinking training, as well as soccer scrimmages designed to promote teamwork. The program will also guide the youth through developing their own Internet sites on mypeacespace.org with the use of donated laptop computers and simple phone lines to counteract the effects of their isolation. We will create a peer-written theater production that illustrates how non-violent conflict resolutiona can be implimented in daily life. The program will be documented for the film Article 15, which i began shooting last summer in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nablus.

Project Description

C.L.A.S.S.Y. is a new organization being started in Henrico County, Virginia. It is an organization designed to empower, educate, and expose teenaged girls to have their own identity, self-confidence, respect, optimistic attitude, proper etiquette, and shape character for a lifetime. The young ladies accepted into the program will be involved in hosting programs of their interest at Wilder, participate in social skills workshops and activities, as well as benefit from having a C.L.A.S.S.Y. director as their mentor.

Project Description

FORGE is a US-based international nonprofit organization that works with displaced communities in Africa. We invest in individuals affected by war to pursue education, economic self-sufficiency, and local development solutions in order to build capacity in African communities and lay the foundation for peace, stability and prosperity.

By investing in promising refugee individuals, FORGE provides opportunities for refugees to transform their home communities, both in camps and in the countries where they will eventually repatriate. To this end, FORGE provides microloans, educational sponsorship, and social-entrepreneurship opportunities to refugees with a vision for improving their communities. Additionally, FORGE manages 32 refugee-run development projects including libraries, computer centers, preschools, health education programs, a refugee-rights advocacy center, arts & music programs, and adult education programs.

FORGE works with over 50,000 refugee men, women, and children from the DR Congo, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan in three UN-managed camps in Zambia.

www.FORGEnow.org

Project Description

We are Future Leaders for Peace, a non-profit organization located in Berkeley, CA. Founded in early January of 2005 by UC Berkeley Alumni Jonathan Kathrein and Richard Hunter, Future Leaders for Peace has reached out to the community to create its volunteer base. Now, nearly two years later, Future Leaders for Peace consists of over 20 volunteers from both UC Berkeley and around the Bay Area. As volunteers, we run workshops at various middle schools, high schools, and youth organizations around Northern California. At these workshops, we teach youth how to deal with everyday conflicts, whether they are school related, peer related, or family related. We give them the tools to take these conflicts and transform them into peaceful and non-violent resolutions. By training them to become leaders, they can, in turn, teach their peers how to become leaders themselves in the hopes of continuing to promote the peaceful and non-violent resolution methods that we have given to them. We also give workshops and talks to parents. Family life is the greatest influence on a child. By teaching parents, we give them the ability to help their children continue the peace-making and conflict resolution process at home. At Future Leaders for Peace, we believe in the importance of promoting peace and non-violence. By teaching people how to break the cycle of violence, we can help them to not only better themselves, but to also better those around them. Using these skills, we leave them with the ability to be a leader in their community and make the necessary changes to help make the world a better place. What We’ve Done so Far: Each year we work with more and more youth. In our first three years we have worked with 3,500 kids and adults, half of which we helped in 2007 alone! We have led 22 workshops this year already! We have 20 college age volunteers, who lead workshops and a student club at UC Berkeley.