IEF Moldova - “Youth Change the World” Peace Camp 2007

The International Association for Education from the Republic of Moldova together with the Philanthropic Association IRFF-ONLUS, organised the “Youth Change the World” Peace Camp during the 2nd to the 7th of August.

The Topic of this summer camp was: “Youth Impact on Culture of Peace and Media” with 20 participants and 7 staff volunteers.

The goal of the Peace Camp was to train students to become potential Youth Peace Ambassadors.

The programme of the camp included various activities, morning meditations, workshops, discussions, games, hiking, team-building exercises, self-defence trainings, service project, excursion on boats, and site-seeing.

The topics of the workshops included in the camp programme were:

1. Universal Principles of Peace and Love. 2 presentations.
2. Love, Life and Family for Youth.
3. Culture of True Love and Friendship for Youth.
4. Radio and TV social advertisement as tools for promoting the Culture of Peace.

Every morning all the participants were invited for meditation after exercises, with readings of texts for moral and spiritual growth, after students were reflecting and setting their goals for the day. Also, during meditation, they were writing the previous day conclusions and experiences in their personal agenda.

Afternoons were dedicated to sports, hiking, games and community service project. Participants visited very beautiful places on the Nistru river near Oxentea and Viscauti villages. Students collected stones from the valleys and built stairs to the spring located near our camp site.

Each day of the program was dedicated to a certain topic.

The first day was the time of welcoming everyone and discovering new friends, creating unity in the teams.

The second day’s motto was “Religions and Culture of Peace”. After morning presentations and discussions all participants received the book My World & I (Way of Unity), on the base of which they were asked to prepare for the evening programme. At the evening programme called “The Round Table of World Religion Founders for Peace of today’s World” each team prepared to embody and speak on behalf of Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Mohamed, as if great religious founders were alive today and were asked to give their perspective on Peaceful solutions for the modern day international and world conflicts. (Middle East, North and South Korea, Iraq and Iran, Pakistan and India, etc.).

We noticed that teachers who were using IEF books for some reason avoided to discuss with their students the chapters about these religions, thus we invited students to explore the topics and try to perform the incarnation of those great men of human history.

The third day’s theme was: Family and Culture of Peace. After morning sessions, we discussed in details about the role of true friendship, chastity and its advantages for personal growth, relationship intelligence and future marriage. The home work was based on the book MW&I way of love (which they received as a present from IEF). Every team was asked to present for the evening programme some family customs and traditions from different faiths. Discussions followed after each team presented very exciting drama on weeding and marriage. It was very intense and profound, touching various aspects like: “Who will make a better choice for my future spouse?”, “Why the development of a good relationship with our friends’ parents is beneficial?”, “How international and inter-religious marriages can solve world conflicts?”

The fourth day’s programme was focused on “Life for the Sake of others and Culture of Peace”, during which all students, boys and girls, very enthusiastically joined the tough project. We collected flat stones from a steep valley and then carried them to the place of the construction. We built the stairs to the spring. All the students helped a lot with collecting and moving the stones from one place to another, by making a chain of people (passing the stones from hand to hand), the spirit was very high, all volunteers were singing and really enjoying the work. Boys were digging the stairs, preparing the cement and making the stairs.

All the participants were gathering every evening at the camp fire singing and sharing their impressions, due to the lack of electricity in the camp. Everyone felt like a big family as brothers and sisters. The most profound experiences were in the fourth evening, when each student was asked to share in detail about the 3 events in his/her life which shaped his/her character, and how it changed them. My heart was deeply touched when these students were sharing the most tearful experiences of their lives to somebody they met just 3 days before, and nobody could resist not to share tears. I saw each and everybody’s tears reflecting the fire flames. Many of the students said that this YCW camp was one of the most crucial events in their lives and that it changed dramatically their character and attitude towards life, love and family.

The fifth day of the YCW Peace Camp was led under the topic of Media and Culture of Peace. The moderator of this workshop was a very active YCW volunteer who coached the student from the camp about Radio and TV social advertisement. Also during one day with the technical support of the local Resource Centre for Youth participants produced two video spots about racial tolerance and promoting abstinence message for youth. Check the links below to download the video-spots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MljvfBFQ36k (about preventing racism)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUYDc6IqVkE (about promoting abstinence)

The evening programme of the last day was dedicated to sharing personal testimonies about the camp by answering to 3 questions: What made me happy during these 5 days? What I was mostly worried about? What I disliked the most during the camp?

All the participants expressed their desire and determination to strengthen the change they have experienced during the last 5 days trough sharing convictions with their friends and encouraging them to join the local YCW youth club and take more active roles in promoting the culture of peace in their schools and communities.

Mihai Calestru, Asociatia Internationala pentru Educatie din R. Moldova

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