Summer workshops: Sawa 2

We’ve been searching for a while for a name to give to the summer project. We thought of humorously and sometimes dead seriously to call it “Passerelles vers l’Autre”, “Bridging youth”, “Associés pour l’avenir”, “Peace sweatshops”, “Reel Peace”.
But I had a thought this morning: Why not stay simple? We are addressing many publics (donors, partners, future volunteers, adolescents and their parents) what are the exact messages we want to convey? That of a summer activity on peace… So I asked myself, why not call it “Peace summer camp”. But our activity isn’t exactly a camp (though it might be interesting to think of and set up a “Peace summer camp” next summer don’t u think?… let’s keep this idea for next year).
What is our activity about? It’s about togetherness, solidarity, celebration of diversity and educating on difference, exchanging ideas, working on a short film, youth empowerment…
In other words, it’s a summer workshop that’s about “youth empowerment for peace”. We already have a history with the name Sawa… So why not call it Sawa 2: summer workshop on youth empowerment for peace.
It’s clear, it’s simple, it shows continuity, and it’s appealing to everyone: volunteers, parents, youth, donor…
As for the posters, we will be working on two today: one for the volunteers and one for the students (and their parents).

A very fruitful meeting

Sunday July 30^th

Not your ordinary Sunday.

Several members of the LNPI met on Sunday: Carla, Diala, Elsa, Gehane, Jihad, Lamya, Naya, Serge, Siham, Valérie. The aim of the meeting was to assess the work already done and to set an agenda for our future meetings and activities. We decided to concentrate our efforts on three projects:

- Psychological assistance

The psychological team had met on Saturday with Sister Caroline to set up a program with her. Sister Caroline is the coordinator of relief work in several displaced centres in Achrafieh. The team had decided to shift its focus from trauma relief to working in Displaced Centres and assisting the displaced population in coping with it’s new setting.

After spending several hours observing the interactions in one of the centres (Salma  Sayegh school), assessing the psychological needs of its population and discussing them,  the team decided to work on three different groups : the displaced mothers, the displaced children and the volunteers.

The first meeting with the volunteer group was scheduled for the coming Tuesday.

- Short film project

During our Sunday meeting we worked for three hours on the short film project. The initial idea was to make a group of displaced children work on the production of a short film illustrating a general topic such as “together” (Sawa) or “the encounter” (al-iltliqa’).

We worked on the program, discussed several activities that would entertain the children while making them work on the production of a short animated film.

We agreed to operate in several displaced centres, each one producing one short film. We thought it best to mix displaced children with those living around the displaced centre (most of which are public schools). By doing so, we would be creating ties between two different populations that formerly didn’t know each other and that would be living in the same neighbourhoods for several weeks and probably months. We will be filming our activities so as to produce a 40 minute documentary entitled al-iltiqa’ (the encounter).

- New banners and slogans for peaceful demonstrations

Protests have been organised on daily basis in downtown Beirut. The most violent one had taken place around noon.

We felt completely unrepresentative in these protests. And most of us had already participated in marches, walking behind banners which we didn’t fully agree with.

Peace initiatives in times of war?

Most of us in the network have been participating in relief work in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, helping out different NGOs in different task they’re performing for the displaced population of Southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburb.

We have been trying to imagine ways in which we could translate our peace drive into concrete actions. 

But people keep asking us the meaning and the use of peace initiatives in times of war, “Shouldn’t we be concentrating on relief work?”, they wonder.

We share their concern, and that is the reason why most of the members of our network have been participating in humanitarian activities. But we still believe that Peace initiatives are important, especially in times of war. How else can we try to escape the logic of war and violence?

How can we translate peace initiatives into actions in times of war ?

• Symbolic actions: peace marches, sit-ins and some more creative actions intending to restore hope and the language of peace… 
• Solidarity acts: Relief work can become a peace initiative. But it must be accompanied by a strong pro-peace message and shouldn’t be seen as a war effort (like it is sometimes shown).

A tide of solidarity

For days, NGO’s, public institutions and political groups have been working actively on alleviating the suffering of the displaced.

While most news blogs have been concentrating on the violence and destruction that is hitting Lebanon, few have delved upon the massive movements of solidarity that have arisen in the Lebanese population.