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Special Report |
LAST UPDATE July 12, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| August 20, 2003 |
Onboard with the New York SAILS Program |
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| A warm welcome aboard for the New York Sails |
From New York to Costa Rica, 22 young people from New York organisations Global Kids, Downtown Community Television Center, and Educators for Social Responsibility Metro Area, joined Peace Boat participants in a special peace education programme of workshops to raise awareness of the different issues involved in peace activism.
As well as the busy onboard Programme, the New York Sails also took part in study tours in the ports of call, learning about the importance of eco-tourism in Jamaica and Costa Rica, and the story of a country without a military in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose. A partnership between Peace Boat, the Hague Appeal for Peace and the New York organisations above, this unique experience was the first time many of the young people had been abroad. |
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| Rehearsals before the Japanese taiko drumming performance |
The Global Kids NGO has over 500 members from the five New York boroughs, and works to develop community leadership skills with children of high school age, as well as raise awareness of how international issues are connected to their own life.
Thinking critically about war and peace, and how conflicts can be solved in a non-violent way, are some of the key goals for Educators for Social Responsibility Metro Area. The students who joined Peace Boat from this organisation are part of an advocacy group called SANITY - "Students Against Nuclear Insanity for Tomorrow's Youth."
Following the New York Sails around Peace Boat with a camera, were Nicole and Jasmine from Downtown TV, an independent media station based in Brooklyn, New York. Interviewing students and participants, and filming some of the many events that take place on Peace Boat, Nicole and Jasmine plan to make a documentary of life onboard.
So why the name New York SAILS? The young people coming from different NGOs decided they needed one name to join them together. The New York came out because in spite of the fact that many of the students originally come from places as diverse as Ivory Coast, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic and other countries in Latin America, they all currently call New York home, as well as it being the starting point of their journey. "SAILS" was the acronym for "Socially Active Individuals Learning at Sea." which they all individually and collectively identified with.
As well as learners, the students were also teachers to the Peace Boat participants, whether giving an informal English lesson or passing on of their view of the world from the perspective of a young adult living in the US, the invaluable experience and energy of these young New Yorkers was an inspiration to many onboard. |
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| Lessons in wearing kimonos |
Every morning, members of New York SAILS and Peace Boat participants joined together for interactive workshops on subjects such as militarism, globalisation and de-nuclearisation. The workshops, developed by Global Kids trainers Patricia Kreuger, Amita Swadhin and David Velasquez; Kathleen Sullivan and Kenya Washington of Educators for Social Responsibility Metro Area; and Felicity Hill of UNIFEM, were conducted bilingually in English and Japanese and sought to encourage the two groups of students to fully integrate with each other and learn from their differing experiences.
The first workshop concentrated on teambuilding, with the aim of creating a sense of community where students could relate their own personal experience to the experience of others. After forming a group identity in the first session, the students moved onto brainstorming ideas of what imperialism and empire meant to them, before dividing into smaller groups to role-play building their own empires.
By using coloured blocks to represent the differing amounts of resources that their nation state possessed, and either losing or gaining these resources on the instruction of a "situation card" - natural disasters, wars, tourism, economy and elections - the power playing politics between larger, dominant nations, and smaller, dependent ones could be understood more clearly. |
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| Tree planting in the cloud forests of Costa Rica |
The fourth workshop aimed to help students understand how tourism is connected to globalisation, and how it has both positive and negative effects on countries and local communities. To introduce some of the problems that a nation dependent on tourism for its main source of revenue may face, students split into smaller groups and stood on a sheet of newspaper that represented a "Paradise Island."
As four different statements were read out - water shortages, prostitution due to poverty, damage to the environment and fear of terrorism - students had to tear a strip of the newspaper they were standing on off. After the exercise, students went on to discuss the implications of tourism and its impacts connected with globalisation.
To conclude the workshops, the final session focused on youth activism and action plans for the students to initiate in their local communities once the Peace Boat Programme had finished. Using examples of youth activism in Colombia, Japan and the US, and stressing the need to organise campaigns for them to be successful, the students brainstormed ideas to change the social injustices that affect the lives of people around the world. |
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| The New York Sails with just a few of their many new friends |
Eager to learn about the different cultures, skills, experiences and people represented onboard Peace Boat, the young adults of New York SAILS took part in an array of activities including, drumming lessons, origami, onboard lectures, singing, producing a radio show, Japanese classes, sign language classes, dancing, water polo, karaoke and a farewell performance of their own on the last night.
The youngest member of the group, 15-year-old Gary from Queens Village, said that "meeting so many interesting people," was the best thing about being onboard, while 17 year old Mark from New Jersey said his was "finding out ways to improve the world." Both especially enjoyed learning another language, and Mark answered that the thing he would miss most about the boat would be "greeting people in Japanese around the ship."
The New York SAILS bid "sayonara" to Peace Boat in Costa Rica, leaving the many new friends they had made onboard with promises to meet again and stay in touch. Enriched with the dynamic input from such enthusiastic individuals, Peace Boat looks forward to the next voyage shared with these young and active people from New York, for within them lies a seed of hope for a real New World Order. |
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