Tolérance

The Federal Reserve claims the average lifespan of a new dollar bill is 4.8 years = 1,752 days. There is unfortunately, no data available on how frequently an individual bill changes hands in its usable lifetime. Once a day sounds about right to me, but wouldn’t you agree that with a single wallet full of Dandelion Dollars, you could realistically expect to reach 10,000 people in the lifespan of those bills?

According to government statistics, out of 10,000 adult Americans:
1,810 suffer from an anxiety disorder
1,500 are living in poverty
930 needed treatment for a drug or alcohol abuse problem in the last year
670 suffer from a major depressive disorder
400 will divorce in the next year
38 will commit a violent crime in the next year
11 will attempt suicide in the next year
1 will die from suicide in the next year

If you could reach out to these 5,360 struggling people with a message of LOVE, JOY, HOPE don’t you think that it would make a real difference to one, or two, or five, or 100 of them to receive it at just the right time when they desperately needed a sign that things can get better. That there are forces out there in the universe pulling for them?. What if my math is wrong? What if it wouldn’t reach 5,360 people like this? What if it only reached 536? Or 53? Or 5? Wouldn’t that still be reason enough to reach out to them? But what if one Dandelion Dollar recipient picked up a dollar and a pen and made a Dandelion Dollar of their own? What if 5 did? What if 53 did? What if 536 did? What if 5,360 did? What if everyone did? :-)

Hullabaloo is the culmination of a yearlong series of workshops where youth learn writing and public speaking skills.

Next year will be Year 3 for Hullabaloo. In this year, Hullabaloo envisions a bold expansion of the program. We will conduct 30 half-day workshops in financially disadvantaged institutions to connect with at-risk youth and help them become engaged in civic issues through spoken word, an increase of 50% over the previous year. We will expand Hullabaloo from 12 to 16 teams.

In practice, a typical example of the impact of Hullabaloo works in the following way. We will arrange a large performance featuring professional Spoken Word performers at a school's general assembly. The youth will see the show and be inspired. Afterwards, there will be a few workshops to give them the basic tools to write their own Spoken Word Poetry and information on how to start a Slam Club. Then, we'll work with the students and their sponsor teacher to continue the momentum with the Slam Club. These students will start putting on shows after school or at lunch for other youth, exposing them to poems about race, class, and other social issues that are common in Spoken Word. The club then forms a team, registers in Hullabaloo, comes to the festival, meets other poets their age, and presents their poems for hundreds of people. Then, they return back to their communities, empowered and inspired to continue to write more poems and stage more performances. It's a positively reinforcing cycle. Each year, more youth get involved, mentor each other, and engage with more through poetry.

In 2010, PeaceTones ran "Haiti Sings," a project in Port-au-Prince. We publicized open auditions on Haitian National TV six months after the earthquake and had an overwhelming response. We selected twenty talented musicians singing about social change and justice, held legal and marketing workshops, and ran a contest on Facebook to select the winner. A global voting population chose a 22-year-old artist named Wanito. He has, in little over a year, become one of Haiti's top stars following our contest and our production of his first album. He agreed to put a percentage of the album sales back into his community through literacy programs.
Wanito is a shining example of an artist who has taken the legal, marketing and justice tools we have taught him, and created a successful career based on a positive and empowering musical message. Wanito was named one of the most influential people in Haiti in 2011, alongside Hilary Clinton, and has also been invited by the Haitian parliament to be Youth Ambassador for 2012. Wanito’s most popular song, listened to by hundreds of thousands of Haitians throughout the cities and provinces of Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, addresses the risk of unwanted pregnancy to teenage couples and encourages the use of protection and forethought. The impact of this song’s public health message throughout the greater community of Haitians is just one example of the potential of an unknown artist’s unknown song to grow into a national campaign for peace, justice and development.

A teacher in a BC grade 4 class may use this forum to engage her students for the entire Social Studies curriculum, children will come away with empathy for others and deep knowledge of their bioeregion and province. An ESL adult class may use the forum further understand the geography of their new home, it can provide a talking point for their own feeling of culture shock and loss. They will come away with a connection to their new home, each other, and understanding of Aboriginal people. The community mapping section will have activities for early chilhood educators through senior citizen coordinators to assist groups in mapping their home. Maps and experiences can be shared online. The model is a website with much to offer from interactive mapping to, experiential activities, and connection. Building social capital through knowledge, empathy, and connection will be integral values in the model.

My aim is to introduce the initiative (material and specifications for the project) to the State or Self-Governing Community Observatory of School Coexistence so that it may be studied in a commission formed by representatives of the school community. Once the project has been discussed, the program would be carried out in a 25 public schools sample, creating work teams with participating teachers in order to draw and present its conclusions.
The program has 15 workshops divided into 6 modules. Each workshop includes:
- Reading part of the text of the Constitution explained to children or one of the fables explaining the origin of Democracy and how it works. Teachers should read these texts to the students.
- Debating among students and their teacher on the concepts dealt with in the text and applicable to real situations and conflicts that may have taken place among them.
- Arts and crafts, plays and musical activities in which teachers for different school subjects may participate, aimed at reinforcing assimilation and application of the concepts learned.
- Home activities aimed at establishing a dialogue with the families on the concepts learned in class linking what is learned at school and at home.
- Creating a web page to coordinate the work, connect the schools involved in the study and provide complementary material.

A daily lesson would consist of a bell ringing activity, Dan Pink's "What is your sentence?" Followed by students using FreeMind Software (Graphic Organizer) to discuss the current plot of Hitchhiker's Guide.

The training will be offered at all-day schools for students from the age of 15 years. It will be a course for a limited nr. of pupils, ideally a homogenous age group. It will run over 6 weeks, 3 hours each week.

The skills trained are listening skills – empathic, respectful, highly attentive, not-solution-imposing listening. The methodology is clearly defined, the elements are conversation, group work, role play, storytelling.

Each of the participants brings in an actual problem they experienced recently in their friend / family / school environment. During the course they learn how helpful a good listener is to find a creative solution - just themselves. Thereby the students discover their own problem solving ability and learn how important it is to listen “right”.

The courses will be repeated at least once a year for a new group of students.

The establishment of “listening spaces” as school wants to establish a self-aid system at schools – students coach students. It empowers students to help themselves, applying the skills “live” makes the knowledge more profound, strengthens leadership skills – and creates a better school environment.

The training can also be offered a job centres, day care centres, youth clubs (Caritas, Kreisjugendring etc) etc.

Set in a beautiful nature-camp environment in the Highlands above Lake Atitlan, Niños del Lago works with a network of referring partners to find and reach-out the at-risk children of Guatemala in 17 of Guatemala's Departments. The program offers a comprehensive recurring camp based experience program with follow-up support during the school year that helps Guatemala’s forgotten children build the self-esteem, empathy, resilience and social skills they need to find and chart pathways beyond poverty. Children are referred from non-profit, registered, social-service agencies in Guatemala. In full operation, we will receive up to 108 children each week over a core 7 month camp season) between ages of seven and eleven – where we believe mentorship can be most effective. Children are invited to return to Niños del Lago camp every year from ages of 7 through 15, as long as they stay in school. After “graduation” they may apply for positions as Junior and then later as Senior Counselors. Every child who passes through Niños del Lago will have the opportunity to become an official members Club Niños del Lago, not only to become counselors in the future, but also the potential ability to earn a scholarship to a university or trade school. We encourage at-risk children to imagine a better future, build skills and empathy to help them to escape the cycle of poverty, violence and limited opportunities.

With Play for Peace, children have stopped bullying from happening in their schools, youth have become global citizens for change and communities have opted for nonviolent action in the face of conflict.

Recently, a group of trainers in India, who credit their school completion on participation in Play for Peace as youth, became Social Entrepreneurs. Like many of our other global youth graduates from South Africa, Chicago and Guatemala, they are leveraging their Play for Peace Trainer Certification and contacts to launch a nonprofit organization working with the Indian public school system to use cooperative play to promote cultural understanding, empathy and prevent school attrition, corporal punishment and bullying.

As Certified Trainers they contact public schools in their region to present the Play for Peace program. After an introductory play session the students and teachers are offered Play for Peace training to form a Play for Peace Club in their school so they themselves can facilitate games in their community. 5 youth founders and 1 adult mentor passionate about peace-building and training are all that is needed to form a Club. Most activities are no-prop and resources are found locally.

After leading several play sessions with children in their community the new youth leaders also begin implementing volunteer activities based on the needs they identify. The students, mentors and trainers all access the Play for Peace global learning community for educational material, sharing, inspiration and lifelong learning.