Our Programs
Summer 2008 TRNINIDAD and TOBAGO: "Thinking Global acting Local"
The Village experience is single session that lasts for 17days and has three main parts. The Summer of 2008 Village will be based in Cumca, a small village in the Northern Range of Trinidad, West Indies. It will consist of 24 youth from two ethnic groups with historical animosities and 4 adults who are conflict resolution and peace practitioners. The program consists of:
Part 1: Experiential workshops- Communication, Conflict Resolution, Violence Prevention, Being Agents of Change, Soul Force , Soul of a Citizen, My Carbon Print
Part 2: Joint community service learning project with Habitat for Humanity T'dad Ltd
Part 3: Dialogues for reconciliation and community building.
August 2008 Summer Peace Project Outline
Schedule:
Week 1 August 3-8: Conflict Resolution and Peace Building Workshops
Villagers will learn crucial life skills through interactive experiential workshops. They will have opportunities to do core workshops and also to choose from a buffet of current topic workshops that are of interest to them.
Week 2- August 11- 13: Joint Venture Initiatives: Community Action
Villagers will engage in a joint venture with an International NGO or Community. It will enable them to explore a new culture and gain global insight while engaging in superordinate goals and working on a project which needs them to cooperate.
Week 3 August 14- 17: Reflection through Facing History Facing Ourselves
On returning to home base in Cumaca the Villagers will use the tools they learned from the previous weeks to engage each other. Oral tradition and story telling are powerful tools which will be used to engage all Villagers in speaking the truth for reconciliation and healing. Exercises serve to break and point out stereotypes or erroneous assumptions we hold of others. It also addresses the Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma that has been passes on through family, community and national stories.
Upcoming Villages
Winter 2008 Boston/Costa Rica: Multicultural Women's Village
A ten day program designed to give women between the ages of 17-25 years the necessary skills, attitudes and knowledge to become culturally competent and socially aware global citizens. The experience will use the three part Village model. In days 1-5 Villagers will take part in experiential workshops. Days 6-8 we will travel as a group to complete the foreign Joint Community action project. One day 9 the entire Village will have the common community reflection and the last day, day 10 will be used for evaluations.
Summer 2009 TRINIDAD/ BENIN WEST AFRICA
A three week program similar to August 2008. In Week 2 we have partnered with a small parish in Calavi, Benin called St. Bakhita to work with Fr. Augustine Houessinon to help him develop his community and assisst with giving the youth in his community a safe place to gather for learning and worship. One of the highlights of the visit will be a tour to "The Gates of No return" the place where slaves were captured and placed on slave ships for the TransAtlantic voyage. This Slavery Tour can help to teach the skills of empathy and serve to address tensions with Racial and Ethnic identity among the Villagers.
