Global Youth Sharing People's Abilities, Culture and Experience

Background

The existence of widespread divisions and hostility separating people around the world is disheartening for young people, who often feel unable to make any response themselves, and in some cases, themselves mimic this hostility within their own local communities in the form of intolerance, discrimination and racism. Bringing people together in small communities in cooperative projects will help counter negative images, enhance communication and overcome the sources of hostility.

The Youth Steering Committee

The GloYoSPACE Project (GYS) has been developed by a group of young people between 12 and 20 who met weekly in Melbourne in 2003, under the auspices of the Global Reconciliation Network (GRN).

The young people initiating this project have expressed their desire to contribute to the shaping of dialogues within Australia and globally around conflict, ethnicity, difference and our approaches to refugees. They emphasise especially the need to establish a basis for unity in diversity and to celebrate difference while recognising common goals.

Convener: Professor Paul Komesaroff, GRN founder and Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethics in Medicine and Society.

Project Director: Victoria Baldwin, GRN inaugural committee member; teacher, singer, writer and conference producer.

Aims

GYS aims:

•  to assist in the development of greater understanding among youth from diverse cultures;

•  to establish networks between communities involving young people that may otherwise not be in communication with one another; and

•  to create an environment in which young people can collaborate in the pursuit of global reconciliation.

Projects:

Each project will be co-ordinated by an adult field professional with experience in education.

Participation is being sought at all levels. If you would like to participate in any of the projects, join your project with us, participate in the overall organisation or just contribute your ideas, we'd love to hear from you: CLICK HERE (LINK TO GRN@med.monash.edu.au)

The promotion video

Timeline: March to July, 2004

Technical Producer and adviser: Bill Lensky, Head of Media at Footscray City College

The video is being made for use in school and other youth organisation presentations to promote participation and/or sponsorship. It will be further developed for showing at the proposed 2005 Festival and for possible television broadcast. Music, humour and documentary style interviewing and story-telling will be used.

The Yo S.P.A.C.E. Songfest

Timeline: Organisation is happening now. Contact us if you'd like to be involved. We anticipate advertising and beginning the call for submissions in April 2004.

A judge's decision and performance is planned for September/October.

Coordinator: Victoria Baldwin

The Songfest is a search for the best songs the youth of Victoria can create that express the spirit of Sharing People's Abilities, Culture and Experience.

Awards will be given for lyrics, music and/or performance. There are no restrictions on style of music. If you'd like to be kept informed, CONTACT US . (LINK TO GRN@med.monash.edu.au)

The Website

Timeline: immediate and ongoing

Co-ordinator: Victoria Baldwin

•  The GYS website will be committed to developing appreciation of multiculturalism and diversity, and to promoting dialogue around issues of migration, refugees and sources of hostile conflict. The serious, the funny and all communication forms in the spirit of S.P.A.C.E. will be welcomed equally.

•  The website team will actively seek contributions from diverse perspectives and aims to build a serious documentation of youth views of local and contemporary global history and their interrelationships

The web site will provide the GYS team with an ongoing meeting place for the development of further projects and partnerships.

What do we need?

We know we would like stories, news, interviews, poems, music, drawings.

We know we would like young people from all walks of life to send us their thoughts, ideas, talk, experience:

•  What do you think? Your thoughts on world news or local behaviours.

•  What do you feel? Feelings about what is - in your life, in the world around you. Feelings about friendship. Feelings about difference. Feelings about being alone, about being with others, about how life could or should be...

•  What do you know? Tell us your stories - what you know or have experienced, where you've been, what you've seen, what you'd like to see because...Tell us with words, tell us with poems, music, hip hop, drawings, photos.

We would like to build a young people's history of Australia: where your news and views matter. We can develop a youth hotline to the major media and other outlets.

We will use the website for events, chats, fora and ongoing development of shared activities.

We're also looking for young webdesigners.

SUBMIT (LINK TO GRN@med.monash.edu.au) your stories or register your interest in this project.

The Festival

Timeline: Ideas are happening now, practical development and touring schools and venues for participation will begin around June. We aim to produce the festival in late 2005, to be followed by an organisers' camp.

The GloYo SPACE Festival and Camp Project will involve a festival and a camp-workshop. The festival – which will take the form of a series of collaborative activities occurring over some months converging in a series of public showings – will aim at a diverse group of young people and will emphasise global reconciliation and cross-cultural pride and acceptance in a laid-back, fun setting.

Following the conclusion of the festival process a camp-workshop will focus on evaluation and on the development of a framework that will enable participants to continue to work actively to make a difference within their own communities.

The festival will involve a series of project "threads" using different media, occurring in different settings and involving a range of groups of young people. These project threads will bring young people together around music, theatre, video, the visual arts, writing, discussion and other activities.

Each project thread will be coordinated by an experienced practitioner, many of whom will have particular skills in education. The threads will come together at a series of public presentations (the “public festival”), which will themselves include international music, theatre, dance, film, food etc., together with lectures and discussion around the theme of the celebration of world cultures and the need for global reconciliation. An emphasis will be placed on interactive workshops to enable participants to engage with each other actively around these subjects in small groups and to provide opportunities for dialogue and individual expression. A particular focus will be applied to issues relevant to Australian society, including indigenous issues and those relevant to people who have come to Australia from other countries.

The threads will be separately coordinated as community based activities or projects, each of which will be associated with a particular event or events at the festival.

“Schools project”

Schools and youth cultural organisations will be approached and asked to create pieces of visual art, drama, music, dance, media or writing, expressing their ideas about global reconciliation, which will then be exhibited or performed at the festival. The purpose of this activity will be to encourage young people from diverse backgrounds to reflect on the meanings and implications of reconciliation and to create opportunities for them to work together to create specific products that realise their ideas. A coordinator or coordinators will participate with teachers in the schools to assist with the development of the material.

“Video project”

An ongoing process of documentation of the GYS will be developed. This will include interviews with young people about their understanding of reconciliation and a presentation of the various settings in which reconciliation needs to be considered. The final product will be presented at the festival, and possibly more widely, and will serve as a record to support the project. Two aspects of the video project are underway: a preliminary “promotional” video that presents the idea of the festival to other young people, and an “archive” of the process of organising the festival itself.

“Tile Path”

Young people from many settings both within and beyond Australia will be asked to contribute a ceramic tile reflecting their ideas about reconciliation. These tiles will then be installed and displayed in a public space as a “reconciliation wall” or “pathway” for public viewing.

“Indigenous theme”

Indigenous groups are being approached to contribute in various ways to the festival. Such contributions could include preparation and presentation of specific works, workshops, and discussions about the crucial role of reconciliation involving indigenous people for Australian society.

“Regional arts project”

Coordinator: Catherine Larkin

Young people living in country areas will be encouraged to work on community based projects reflecting their concerns relating to local and global reconciliation.

“Arts for unemployed kids”

Young people not in employment or education engaged in existing programs around the arts will be encouraged to display their works in the festival setting.

Other projects

A number of other projects, including theatre, contemporary music, etc., are being developed. Where possible, attempts will be made to encourage groups and individuals in the community working with young people towards the broad goal of reconciliation to consider participating in the festival.

Benefits to participants and the community

•  The principal benefit of GYS will be the creation of an ongoing space for young people to voice and develop conditions for harmony between people from different cultural, political, racial and religious backgrounds. The experience of young people from diverse backgrounds working together on particular projects itself will lead to an increase in understanding and cross-cultural harmony and tolerance which those participants will continue to practice in their daily lives.

•  The GYS process involves young people volunteering service in order to achieve their goals. The participants will be involved in a process of skill development in planning, research and communications which will have permanent long term bearing on their lives.

•  The web site and other specific outcomes generated through the GYS Project will provide permanent ongoing resources available to the whole community: schools, libraries, unions and other organisations. Artistic works, craft exchanges, the video, the tile installation and written materials, will provide a concrete embodiment and symbol of the processes that produced them and will continue to represent the aims of the project.The community will reap the benefit both of the immediate product and of the process it supports.

•  At the public festival and the camp which follows a framework will be developed to facilitate continuing forms of cooperation and ways of bringing people from different communities and cultures together.

•  GYS will also work to develop proposals to extend its scope to include young people throughout the region. Extensive links have already been established within Australia which include rural and indigenous participants and contributors from many different cultural groups. International links will be facilitated by the enthusiastic support provided for this project by UNESCO, by the extensive network of participating groups established by the GRN, and by the link, through one of our patrons, with East Timor. Active investigations are also presently being undertaken into the possibility of developing a collaboration with craft groups in Bali.

Partnerships

This project is essentially one of partnership embracing a wide range of groups and individuals. Some current key partners include the following:

Monash University through the Centre for the Study of Ethics in Medicine and Society will host the web site and provide logistic and infrastructural support.

Young people will be invited to participate through approaches to schools and community organisations.

Catherine Larkins, Regional Arts Victoria, will work with young people living in country areas who will be encouraged to work on community based projects reflecting their concerns relating to local and global reconciliation.

Footscray City College Media Department will work with the steering committee in the development of a promotional video.

Reconciliation Victoria has expressed strong support and interest in participating in ways to be devised.

Melbourne businessman Mr Les Erdi will sponsor the songfest which will be featured on the web site and managed through it.

The steering committee is actively involved in seeking further partnerships.

Volunteers

The steering committee welcomes and is actively seeking the participation of young people in the planning, organisation and execution of all aspects of the projects.

Sponsorship

The Global Reconciliation Network and GYS are committed to respecting and nurturing the creative imagination and exuberance of our youth.

The GYS Project represents a vital opportunity to invest in the youth of today towards a better world tomorrow.

Donations to the GYS Project can be made by cheque or credit card payable to the Global Reconciliation Network -GYSP, Monash University.

Monash University is a tax deductible gift recipient within Australia.