Question from last week:
Find another international peace-making operation that has worked in the past or is working in the present.  What is it about?


An organization I found is called the "International Peace Research Association."  IPRA has been working and researching issues in the world and how to create sustainable world peace since 1964.  Through the collaboration professors, political leaders and other world leaders they create publications, conferences and peace eduation to bring throghout the world in over 200 countries. 

Based out of Belgium, it has a much stronger influence in Europe, however, I found access to one of their journals through George Mason Univeristy.  The current Secretary Journal, Keven Clements, was appointed in 2010 and has begun to branch the organization out more.  There are several committees and working groups that have different professional minds working toward the common goal of peace.  A few of these committes include:

Art and Peace Commission Conflict Resolution and Peace-Building Commission Eastern Europe Commission Earth Charter Commission Forced Migration Commission Gender and Peace Commission Global Political Economy Commission Indigenous Peoples' Rights Commission Internal Conflicts Commission International Human Rights Commission Nonviolence Commission Peace Culture and Communications Commission Peace Education Commission Peace History Commission Peace Journalism Commission Peace Movements Commission Peace Theories Commission Reconciliation Commission Religion and Peace Commission Security and Disarmament Commission Youth and Peace Commission

This week in class:

This week in class we finished the documentary "Promises."  It was interesting to see the ending and what came of the children after the intial interviews.  They all changed signicantly in the interviews after the film.  When the children, two Israeli and several Palestinain, met in the film, they realized that the two races can coincide and live together.  That no matter their differences, many of them wanted to be friends.  They were all children, with the common pure purpose of finding cooperation and peace.  I found it interesting that only two Israeli children, who were twins, wanted to meet the Palestinian children and yet there were at least four or five palestians ready to meet and converse with the Israelis.  It is evident who wants change and who wants to ignore the conflict.  One Israeli boy, when asked if he wanted to converse with the Israelis, told the camera he had no interest.  Either way, the meeting was successful in the film.  However, it was identified that after the meeting the children would go their separate ways and their stride to peace would be forgotten.  That is exactly what happened, and several years later, the Israelis are serving in the army and the Palestinians and seperated and still supressed.  It is a realistic, meaningful ending.  Something must be done to stop the circle of the Palestinian conflict.  Parents teach their children to hate the other race, and by the time they are grown, they do.

This is why I think that the filmmakers kept showing a shot of a tire rolling through the dirt, never stopping, caught on fire.  The Iranian-Palestinian conflict is a reocurring cycle of hatred.  The only thing that can break it is a new generation who is able to cooperate and learn from each other.  Palestinians and Israelis should be able to share the land and their holylands in peace.  Much of the land that the Israelis took from the Palestinians is not even being used!  Why should it matter if the land was returned to those who owned it before? 

In a completely different discussion, I vacationed in St. Augustine, Florida over springbreak this year.  While there, I realized that they was a strong deaf community in the town.  There is a prestigious deaf school there and due to our viewing of the documentary about the Cochlear Implant, I was immediately interested about these people.  I ended up seeing a group of twenty deaf students on the beach for three days in a row.  I played soccer with one who had a cochlear implant and could understand me perfectly.  It was interesting to see something we learned in class so very real.

Question for next week:
What is the current situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Sources:

The Promises Film Project. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. http://www.promisesproject.org/.

International Peace Research Association." Redirect. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. http://soc.kuleuven.be/iieb/ipraweb/index.php?action=page.

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. http://www.cnn.com/.]

Journal 3_9

This weekend...: TEDxTeen

I walked into the TED conference not knowing what to expect.  I arrived early and realized how many different types of people were there.  I had no idea this was going to be an international event, or that all the people would look so professional.  It was daunting.  And then, out of nowhere, this little teeny bopper girls comes over to me.  I immediately felt relaxed...until she asked me, as serious as can be, "so...What do YOU do!?"  I replied that I was a high school student in virginia, and she repeated her question, "No, but what do you DO?"  I didn't know how to respond.  Thoughts raced through my head: what does she mean? whats she trying to ask?  What DO I DO?? It was a question I soon realized I needed to answer. 

My trip to TED made me understand how tangible global change really is.  The idea of kids younger than me and other young women and men going out and taking control of the future is infectious.  These speakers before me were not very different from myself, and had taken the intiative.  They provided examples, advice and connections to becoming an activist.

One man, an artist in New York City, gave me the idea of how the purest meaning of an idea or message will become contagious.  His message: Love me, has spread throughout New York City in graffiti and can now be found all over the world.  His simple idea can be teh same as Farah Pandith's (another speaker at the conference) "Youthquake."  A ripple effect young people have on society through social media and the information age.  A theme throughout the conference was how the connections on line have broke division and barriar in creating social change.  It has also elimanated a strong factor of fear.  One of my favorite speakers, Jeremey Heimans stressed the importance of the web over social change. Politicians are chanied by compting parties and re-elections.  They are a face in the public eye: an effective movement is not a face, but an idea.  A true social innovator, a disruptive innovator, someone who solves problems with news inventions and ideals instead of directly solving the problem--is effective.  These people are most effective when they are a so-called "anonymous extraoridanary," letting their idea lead instead of themselves. 

The first woman I met at TED, Tammy Tibbets, is a prime example of this new-age leader and changer.  She is the social media worker for Seventeen Magazine by day, and presdient of her own non-profit organization "She's the First" by night.  Shes's the First is an organization celebrating young women in education or the working world.  They partner with schools in Uganda, India and Tunsinia- to name a few.  Tammy was a college graduate, but her story made this life and actions seem so accesible.

These men and women have led me to my own beliefs about creating change.  They have made me feel as if I can do something.  That I need to focus on something.  That I can be the change they are, and that I really need to get going on it.

Creativity is key to the process.  Without a creative mind, and the idea of accepting failures with perserverence you will never achieve your goal.  The creative, ready and active minds of youth today are leading the world.  The effective change happening is inevitable.  Revolutions, such as the Egyptian Revolution, have been spurred by the ideas flowing at this conference.  Our generation has more technology and means to create movements than any previous generation.  Innovation, however, is the key to a progressive and prosperous future.  One quote that they showed at the conference that stuck with me was a quote by Steve Jobs: "The difference between a leader and a follower is innovation."  To be a leader today, you don't need to get up on a podium and make some big long speech and run for election, you need to be active.  You need to be communative.  You need to let an idea speak for itself.  And if your idea is good enough, it will create the change it needs to.

I have to begin to answer the question of: What do I do?  Right now, I am creating a sufficient list to What will I do?  I want to spread my ideas about the power of youth that I learned from this conference.  I want other kids to see that how plausbile it is to really, actually, change the world. 

Journal 4_1

Question from last week:
Research one of the TEDxTeen speakers.  What are they doing?  How did their talk relate to the infromation on the web?



Jeremy Hermiens, a speaker at TEDxTeen, is actually very similar to how he spoke to how he is on paper.  His work includes, purpose.org, LIVESTRONG campaign, Avaaz.org and GetUp.org.  He is from Australia, and talked mainly about creating a movement that is about the people, not a leader.  He has sucessfully done this in his work.  Through his campaigns and websites, he has given the people the means to create political revolutions and "get-up" in their own country.  He has made a campaign about fighting cancer about a band, not a figurehead. 

This week in class:

This week in class we did a few various activities--all of which I can relate back to my experience at TED.  The first class Kari and I spent a lot of time talking to everyone about everything we learned and how excite we were about TED.  I wish that the other students could imagine just how spectacular that conference was.  We also watched a TED talk this week about a french artist who changed the world with huge photographed posters of people's faces in need.  He was spreading the stories of the people of drug-ridden towns in Africa and poverty districts of Paris.  It was an amazing project, and segwayed perfectly into our next documentary, "Promises," which is centered around the Isreali-Palestinian conflict.

My favorite part about what we did this week was relating what the French artist did in Palestine to the documentary, "Promises."  Both have the same message.  The French artists decided to take you posters of Israeli and Palestinian people and post them anywhere with high visibility.  The project was called "Face to Face" because he would always post the a picture of an Israeli and a picture of a Palestinian--Face to Face.  When he asked the citizens which was which, most could not tell.  In Promises, the filmmaker is comparing the childhoods of several children who live within 20 mintues of each other, and yet lead different lives.  Though we have not finished the documentary yet, it would be interesting of the documentary's main point was that the two chilhoods were relatively similar except for religion. 

It is interesting to me that so many regions and countries where much of the culure is the same, is where fighting begins.  The Mexican drug wars are a good example of this.  Gangs, who share the same heritage, language, culture and country, are ravaging their homeland because of drugs.  They are bringing their children, their future, into the conflict and not thinking twice about it.  What would happen, if the Face to Face project compared two leaders of different factions of the drug war?  They are so similar, they have the same goals, why does humanity always have to fight?

Question for next week:
Find another international peace-making operation that has worked in the past or is working in the present.  What is it about?   

Sources
Jeremy Heimans." TEDxTeen.com. Web. 12 Apr. 2011. http://www.tedxteen.com/jeremy-heimans.

"Avaaz - The World in Action." Web. 12 Apr. 2011. http://www.avaaz.org/en.

The Promises Film Project. Web. 12 Apr. 2011. <http://www.promisesproject.org/>.