Janet Landry (Dallas)
Books for Baghdad
our original plans, and we hope it continues to do so. We see it as a continuous proiect that could grow to
Children crowded into barren classrooms, waiting in
Iraq. After Noor's touching slideshow in Jordan that
them. Since I had returned from my first session oT Beyond Borders in Maine, images like these were constantly on the news, with headlines like "Conditions in lraq Getting Worse"
is, the Dallas delegation was even more motivated in
line as insufficient school supplies were divided am-ong
include other learning guidbs and materials ne-eded in
reminded us of how horrific the environment in kaq still our tenacity to help our sister city.
and "Schools Shofl on Supplies." They
reminded me of Shahad, Deema, and Noor, three Iraqi girls I had befriended
in Maine. I recalled their accounts about how dangerous life was for students our age living in lraq, and how they risked their lives to attend school. Before I met Deema. who was in my dialogue group. these news bulletins were tragic. but somehow hadn't truly affected me. But after becoming such ilose friends these girls, I found myself constantly worrying about them in this violent environment, risking their lives to go to school, only
be met with inadequate supplies. lmmediately, I thought of how muih my
school had, and wanted to share this
them.
\ with
.
P
To our fortune, Bevond Borders naired
the Dallas delegirion and the'lraqi
delegation. Our goal was to work togethel
on a project, to present at our second meeting in Jordan. I proposed the idea
1
-' a*t.r..
to the Dallas and Iraq delegations, and thus Books for Baghdad was conceived. I contacted Eva Gordon. the program coordinator. to see if this idea wbuld work and she was amazingly supportive. It was originally set up as a waylo gather some books to send over to Iraq. Since then, however, it has grown tremendously by the ambition and determination of the
Dallas delegation, and also by the incredible suppofi of our communities and fellow Beyond Borders participants
from Dallas. For example, Samantha Richey has gathered, with the generous help of her school, loads of school supplies to be shipped to lraq. I proposed the idea to my school's Kev Club. and its members-have donateil over' 200 books. ranging from novels to children's books. Casey Zager has supplied entire sets of middle school-level books for our project, and Autumn Reeves has set up numerous book drops in libraries around her hometo^wn for Books for Baghdad.
ISISS4I
Eva and th9 rest of the Seeds of Peace staff are helping us to ship these books and supplies to Iraq. and we hopE to send them out soon. This project has grown beyond
[I
(i
I
I [i[-[[[:[.S
Since the beginning of 2005, Seeds of Peace have been increasing their community service involvement, With help. fromstaff
or completily oritheir own, Seeds have shown their communities with their actions what it means to be a
Helping Tsunami Victims lbrar Chaudhry (Lahore)
It was January 2,2005. We Pakistani Seeds were enjoying a workshop with Marieke, Jen and Bill. At the last moment of the
created. The best thing about our fundraising was that we asked children to give their pocket money. There was no need to ask their parents (as
workshop, Neeta, a Pakistani Seed, made the group realize the horror of the tsunami disaster that had occurred the previous week. Maybe it was a result of our three days of working together that made us take an oath, determined to help the victims, using the platform of SOP.
students of our middle- and lower-class schools usually do). The students knew us well so they trusted us, and in a week we were able to collect 10,000 Pakistani rupees (about $180). It was a big achievement indeed. People have trust in SOP and I
On the very next day, I went to my principal
point.
for oermission to raise funds for tsunami
reliel
He appreciated the idea and permitted me to do so. With the assistance of Ahmad
Ali Babar, another Pakistani 2004.
I made
Seed from a speech for the fund we
Seed
think this was a big turning The purpose of writing about this is make clear that SOP is
a strong platform for doing something meaningful in our societies. People have many plans but they do not have necessarily
Building Gommunity in Tiv'on
have a platform, but SOP is a strong one, teaching us the value of community service
and how to contribute to our society.
be more meetings. The cooperation between the kids was amazing;
Gilad tavie (Tiv'on) and Yael Meretyk (Tiv'on)
they saw that the "other side" is just like them.
What is "Rakya?"
When we saw the smiles on their faces we felt that we fulfilled the mission; that we succeeded in taking what we have passed through the camp and bringing it to our community. The Rakya project is our proof that, "if you will it, it is no dream." We have planned three more meetings until the end of the school year, one each month. Our hope is that the project will grow with the kids. We believe that future Seeds will join Rakya and turn our hope into reality. Not many people get to build and guide such a project. We feel very special and we would like to thank everybody for their help and support.
In Hebrew, the letters in the word Rakya stand for "Rokmin Ksharim bein Yehudim ve'Aravim," which means establishing connections between Jews and Arabs. It all started when we came back from camp and thought about how we could bring to our community the experience that we had been through. We didn't want this to be a regular project; we wanted something
different, a project that would make a real difference. It took us some time until we thought of Rakya, a project to bring together 100 third graders
from Kiryat Ti'von,
our town, and Ka'abia, a Bedouin village. We sot a lot of enthusiastic feedback.
Seeis of Peace supported us by giving us materials, money and advice. We recruited six students from our school to help us plan and guide the project. The first two meetings were great.
The kids loved our activities,
fit
together wonderfully and showed great enthusiasm for the future. They were so happy to hear that there will
Volunteering at the Eiman Boarding School Hazar Abd al-Razek (Taybeh)
In one of the meetings of the Triangle
As a girl who grew up in a loving family, I feel that every child has the right to feel safe and belong to a family that gives him coziness, love, and respect. From a young
the Eiman Boarding School.
age, I have been eager to make a difference by achieving my dream - "drawing a smile on a child face."
Seeds, an idea for an interesting project came up: volunteering in a boarding school.
This school, located in Taybeh, is called It serves young children aged from 5-17 who are otphans or suffer from socioeconomic problems. The school provides for children who can go to a regular school in the morning and
return at noon, to get help with their homework, receive good food and clean shelter for sleeping. a boarding school mainly because it was the first step toward achieving my dream. I decided to take action by meeting the
in
manager of the school to represent our willingness to help. The staff explained to us the do's and don'ts of volunteer work there. Together, the manager and the volunteers olanned an active schedule that includes plenty ofexciting activities, such
The first day of volunteering there was a success. We, the volunteers, introduced ourselves through interesting activities. Even the crew participated and enjoyed that day. We left a positive impression on the children and the staff.
In the future, we have many plans . We will go there twice a month, and divide the children into small groups to be more renovate some of the facilities, like painting the school's walls and decorating the rooms. There is also a possibility to join them on some of their trips.
I want to thank the Triangle
Seeds from
Taybeh, Jatt and Tira for helping me, and giving me this opportunity to achieve my oream.
When we first got there we were kind of
Visit to Rehabilitation Genter in Ramallah
scared because we didn't know how to act or talk, but that was only in the beginning.
Nada Enab (Ramallah)
We visited some of the patients and gave them some small gifts from the group, to make them feel little bit better. When we sooke with them thev told us about their siories and their probiems, and it was nice to listen to them and be able to understand
On March 18th, my SOP dialogue group from Ramallah went to visit the Abu-Raya Rehabilitation Center in Ramallah. This center emerged in response to an increase in the spinal cord injuries during the Intifada. We went there to visit the patients, get closer to our society and know more about the patients' problems, and tell them
of
spofis day, educational games and arts.
effective. Over the summer, we plan to
I was attracted to the idea of volunteering
about Seeds
as a
the situations that they were going through.
We felt very sorry for their situation. For our sake and theirs. I have learned to keep a smile on my face, despite the hard
Peace and our camP
experience.
situations that we are going through
together.
Preparing the Beit Jala Park Municipality Bethlehem Seeds
On Fridav. March 18. we held our first community service activity, cleaning the park of the Beit Jala Municipality. The activity was supposed to be from 1l:00 A.M. until 1:00 P.M., but instead of volunteering for two hours we did double; we worked for four hours because it was an exciting activity: we
had fun and worked at the same time. This park, part of the Beit Jala Municipality, was established by foreign donations. Many people, especially children, come there. We reaLized it's necessary to help the
Municipality
to prepare the park for its opening day, Monday, March 21. When we arrived at the site, we were informed of the iobs that we had to do. We divided into groups and each group had a specific task: removing unnecessaly grass, planting flowers,
clipping the branches of the trees and much more. We had a great time and we had the best Seed manager, Tamara Qaraqee, who leads activities for the Bethlehem Seeds. We hooe to continue these activities that our communities need.
Tsunami Disaster
Radha Sampath Kumar (Mumbai)
This message was posted on to the SeedsNet listserve on December 27, 2004 Tsunami: the word itself gives rise to fear in our minds and hearts. The tsunami tidal waves were no doubt extremely destructive. This was proved by the disaster that occurred on 26th Decemb er 2004. It was an event none of us can forget. This tidal tragedy was so intense that it destroyed acres and acres of land at a stretch in minutes. It measured 9'0 on the Richter scale.
countries. Some peofle were fortunate to have survived these waves, but others were not so lucky. Some families are mourning the death of their young ones while some are still searching for some trace of their loved ones. In India, lhese"*aves caused destruction mainly in the southern parts. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands were completely washed awdy due to this calamity. Thousands and thousands of people have losl theii homes and families. They have no place.to live., no food to eat, noivhere to go! They are in a state of helplessness. Some people have victorious stories of survival while many families have tragic stories of death.
-ilriqr"u':*?i{[iff:'*$;'
\ ,/ .-
A victorious story of survival is the story of Michael Mangal. In Port_Blair, a victim
of the tsunami was rescued after surviving for 26 days on a partially submerged island in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, the officials of the Indian Navy said. Michael Mangal, a Nicobarese tribesman who had be-en living o_n coconuts since the December 26Ih disaster, was spotted waving a cloth flag made from his clothes by a joint navy and civilian search and rescue team. The team-spotted him waving a stick hag on Pillow Panja Island. He was exhausted and weak when the rescue team brought hiri back to Port Blair. Mangal was sucked into the sea when the first tsunami wave retreated, but a second wave dumped him back on the shore. Mangal, who was slightly iniured, told the rescue team thaf he had searched for the people from his devastated viilase but was afraid no one had survived. He said he sat on a tree for several days and nighls, as he was afraid of being "swallowed by the ocean." The people affected by this calamity are facing problem; such as malnutrition, which is a frowing problem imong tsunami survivors, with high prices and poor quality food leaving maiy vulnerable to iickness. Sporadic cases ofchicken pox have_been reported amon[ chililren accommodated in shelters for tsunami victims in Nagapattinam. People from all over the world have provided helpin whatever -wa-y tfey can. This is ind6ed the feeling of humanity and concern that flows through the_ hearts of_-every person, no matter their religion, nationality, caste, creed, etc. Countries from all over ihe world have united together to help those who were affected by this tidal-tragedy. Many countries have he$ed the affected nations by providing medical and financial aid. Many have also collected money for the re-building of houses.that were washed away while others have provided support to overcome the loss. At this moment' a proverb comes to my mind: "In times of prosperity friends will be plenty; but in times bf adversity not one among twenty." But in the aftermath of the tsunami, this,proverb has been pioved wrong. The various countries of the world seem to be helping each other in tihes of adveriity such as the tsunami tidal disaster but in times of prosperity and happiness, they seem to be behaving as strangers. During crisis, everyone lends a helpin! hand but as soon as the crisis is.over, personal considerations become more imfortint and people begin to neglect the interests of others. People of different -religions and nationaliti,es are he$ing each other irrespective of their conflicts and differences. If this friendly attitude of people all over the world continues to prevail, then wars and
t
ots will disappear forever. If the countries of the world continue to be such helpful nature then where is the place for war and hatred? I hope that the souls of the people who died in the tsunami disaster resl in peace forever.
tp
Trasedy -
$e"p9,n{i1g . Nazaqat Lal(Mumbai)
No one would have suspected that such a festive Christmas celebiation could brine forth such a disastrous morning. Withii
minutes, the menacing waves had reduced
entire cBities to ramshackle huts, killed
thousands of people and ruined everything
in their path. The waves washed-awa! dreams, hopes, lives and all that they
possibly could; leaving behind only despaii. Give jt a thought: If you rerurned 6ome'one day and saw that the place you had once called home no longef existed, your loved ones lost. and you. left abandoned to face the world, with no one to tum to for comfort or any kind of security . . . just rhe rhought of, it is so frightening I don't even want-to begin to imagine; so think of those who experienced it!
TIDES OF FATE
A monster wave lashed the shore, Many a shack and mansion it tore.
It let out heart-rending roars, As iJ' to settle its remaining scores.
It washed away so many lives. Fathers, sisters and pregnant 'rvives.
Drowned beneath the waves, Were kings and peasants,
There was an article about one of the survivors of the tsunami that tremendously moved me. lt was about a woman, with hei two children, who was engulfed in a wave, and h_er only.means of support was a palm tree. It was_impossible for her to protect both, her children and herself. She was forced to choose between the two children as she could only protect one of them, and she chose to protect the younger one. She actually allowed her elder child to be washed away by the cruel waves in front of her own eyes. Luckily, the elder child did survive. It must have been hearl-rendins for the mother to choose between her owi children, and for the elder boy to know that Our school attended a charity viewins of Lhe movie 'Black'and raised iunds to h'elp
tsunami. the nationality of th-e victimsieallv didn't matter. All that mattered was that thi:
the tsunami victims. Our conffibutions were not solely made to buy them new lives, but
Gold coins, mansions and fields of rice?
Submerged in it,
Was t-he land
for which we fought,
!1,ery human mind was frozen with thoight.
belief in peace and-unity. burins the
victims were human and needed help.
We parted families qnd divided lands. Crushed bodies and severedhuman hands.
And now we suffer the wrath of nature's
What did we gain from this ruth[ess
4#i
Bqf*,
Believe in the almighry lord,
massacre?
destroyed soil surfacing every acre?
All is lost wealth and lqnd, N_o_w we beg nations for a helping hand. Whatever we wanted till yes/ertlay,
A Jew, Muslim and Zoroastrian.
For fighting
Did it even think twice? Before it washed away,
ves.
his mother chose his sibliig over him.
Mother Nature washed'it
took away a Hindu and a Christian,
Li
A few days after the tsunami. India and Pakistan played a cricket match, and the Pakistani cricketers gave more Ihm 50Vo of their salaries to hel[ fte Bunami victims. The constant and ffemendous support from the world community strength-ened mv
Bearing a destruction site so unpleasant.
It
rather to help them to rebujld the lives rhev had lost to rhe tsunami. It was with thes! intentions that we donated generouslv to the tsunami relief fund and i,e hooed ihat wit"h our help the victjms would ioon be able to regain what they had lost, not fullv dependent on us for-aid, but more on themselves for the confidence and self hlief which was needed to rebuild their broken
Bltt
w-e
awa7.
know we are punished for ru, grrid.
for land more than we-need.
For chasing materialistic wealth, Instead of human life and health.
,oo* away our much-wanted plory. Oh! You ungrateful humsn!
i;r;# Yri!1,
Xf,;| lf k],i,',,ff,! *' op o ni a n d b
!!,"
"'
n
t
o'l
o
Divya Moorjaney (Mumbai)
arro r d
od - bathe
d
l( ,l
Changing Mindsets' One
comment would make us felt clueless. There were pupils who seemed interested in what
Amina Ali (Lahore)
to listen to us but were
Student at a Time
we were saying, some did not even want
If you are a Seed and you are planning a
absolutely agreed.
school presentation, here are some things to prepare ror:
At the end of our second presentation, in a school named Lady Macliggion, a girl in about 10th grade came up to me and said' "I totally agree with you guys. If we won't look out our pasts, we will never be able to make peace with Indians' And peace is what matters." A rush of happiness sprang through my body at these words. I felt that
Rude answers
Angry looks Yells of disapproval
But you sometimes may get a nod of agreement.
Iama2004 Pakistani Seed. When I attended a meeting to prepare for my first school presentation, I found myself in a very
iomplicated situation: convincing
voungsters who had not actually seen or ielt tfre 'other side'; youngsters who had been brainwashed from the very beginning with groundless stereotypes. The thought of giving new ideas seemed very tough'
Facing the lssues: Economic
The presentation, howeveq did go well. At
times, I
saw the high school students agreeing with what I was saying and they began to seriously ataTyze facts' which
was, indeed, a great achievement. Sometimes, we Seeds saw ourselves facing
school oresentations and attended monthly
Gender disparity
interesting subject: economic and gender disparity among Pakistani Seeds. I was wondering what we would say on this. It
the
problems in the world? To be honest
I am
as
confused as anyone.
Seeds of Peace showed me my ignorance. rnade me realize how much I still have to learn and realize. But I guess that change
wasn't permanent, or maybe it was and-I
had started to ignore it because I find myself
no wiser than before.
Six months after camp, I had done some
Changing the mindsets of people who have certain ideas since the very beginning is not an easy task. However, changing these
I am
out just perfect, a sudden question or
I always wonder about the things we leam. Do we learn new things about the world,
follow its course by ignoring all
something and that some of the pupils did
believe that we were not brainwashed.
ideas has slowly taken place, and proud to be part ofthis change.
AyyazAhmad (Lahore)
or do we iust realize that we already have them witiin ourselves? Do we stop living in a dream world and learn to be realistic, or do we stop being rational and let nature
we finally succeeded in conveYtng
thinss we did not even think about. While at tiires everything seemed to be turning
meetings, but was looking forward to somethlns far more constructive. The workshopin Lahore in January coveredan
and Gender DisParities
constantlY
bombarding us with questions and some
turned out that we had a lot to
saY.
It is amazing how much you learn in
such
workshops. How much you realize about vourself and others as well. No matter how much you deny the impact it is always
there. You learn how interdependent everyone is. You learn how the action of one affects the other even if it was
unintentional. In terms of economic
disparity. one can clearly see how a person lrom an inferior class leels when a person from a slightly higher class does something to hurt him. even if it is unintentional or
jokingly.
is also widespread
throughout the world. There are two sides to ev6ry story and it was the same case here. in Lahore. Boys were unaware about how girls felt and girls r.r ere unar.r are about how 6oys felt on this issue. The issues did set discussed, face to face. When I speak
ior myself I don't know if it brought
a
chanee in us or not, but better to face the probGm than to ignore it.
Indian and Pakistani workshops, seminars and school presentations aim to teach both Seeds and non-Seeds about the organization and to humanize the other side. With a long border separating the two sides, they nevertheless find ways to communicate and answer each other's questions Across the Border by Video Teju Javeri (Mumbai)
Karjat is a small hill station about 3-4 hours
away from Mumbai, where I live. It's a really beautiful place, and it is over here that we, the Indian delegation (along with Feruzan Mehta, our regional director), come for our Seeds of Peace seminars durins the year. The main goal of rhis lasr sem-inar was to plan the "Bring A Friend" workshop
that was to take olace once we returned to Mumbai. We spent a lot of time discussing our expectations of the workshop. A11 of us hoped that our respective friends would walk out of the workshop with a slightly changed opinion ofPakistanis, and with a
interpretations could be put forward by people. In the evening the entire delegation came together, and we took part in similar activities. After dinner, there was a small "impromptu" (otherwise known as crazy) entertainment program. We sang songs we
had made up or learned from our staff -
Jen,
Bill, Marieke
and Meenakshi.
Next morning, we were going to help our friends create a videotape with questions they wished to ask the Pakistanis. The friends of the Pakistani Seeds would answer
these queries that we
had.
We were also supposed to make a tape in which we would speak of the similarities between Indians and Pakistanis that we had
about visiting the US, but that it has a deeper
invited me to, I ran toward the rooms in which
response to the tape, rend the at ticle below)
the Seeds were seated. Confused to see the countless pairs of shoes that lined the entrance, I stepped in. I looked around nervously, hoping to find Neeta sitting in a1l
any one of the two groups of children in the room. (All I could gather in such a hustle was that they were talking about India and Pakistan). What started off in haste and uncertainty soon became one of the most enlightening and enjoyable experiences. I was welcomed into the group and soon became a part of the discussion. After a delicious lunch. we
were shown a tape that had been sent by Seeds across the border. (see article above)
They had asked various questions
when we thought of an Indian. After we had seen the tape, we made another similar
Peace workshop that my friend Neeta had
and
voiced their opinions regarding Pakistan. Our task was to divide into smaller groups and to prepare answers to those questions.
I thoroughly enjoyed working with people rvhom I had not met before. I had never been a part of such an activity in which, being a teenager, my opinions regarding the Indo-Pak conflict actually mattered. I
realized that I did not have adequate knowledge about the conflicr and had wrongly believed that the Indians were an unreasonable enemy that would never
other and cooperate. I felt that it brought us closer together as a group offriends. All this time, the 2001 Seeds had been planning
(Editor's Note: to see one Pakistani's
so many
Arriving considerably late for the Seeds of
This entire experience was incredible. It was wonderful how one idea srew out of another. how we began to lisien to each
are as successful, that we manage to take the "Bring A Friend" workshop further, and spread the message of Seeds of Peace to more and more people on the subcontinent.
depicting various questions the Pakistanis had asked us during camp. One group would form the sculpture, while the other group would interpret it. It was remarkable how
Joining Hands For Peace
questions.
I really hope that our subsequent meetings
We parlicipated in various activities. In one of them, we had to build human sculptures
Sara Pervaiz (Lahore)
were to be discussed on the taoe. We riere also to talk of the experiencss we had in Pakistan during our hbme stays there. We spent the entire morning deciding what we would record, and how we would initiate discussions to help our friends choose their
workshop, to be based on discussions about various issues relating to the two countries, like the Partition, r'eligion and society. After some changes, we came up with a concrete plan of action that was both interesting and interactive.
pulpose - peace and continuing dialogue.
in such a small group
we had about Pakistanis before camp, some
of which were alleviated after dialosue.
the activities for the first half of the
feeling of contentment at having attended it. We wanted them to have a sood time. and to gain something from the dxperience. It was also important for us to make our friends realize that Seeds of Peace isn't only
even
discovered at camp. Various prejudices that
list of words. Surprisingly, the two lists contradicted each other. (The first list contained words such as enemv. cruel. uniriendly while. the second list ionsisred
provide an "access to the truth" by giving youth on both sides of the border, a chance to interact with each other in a healthy
environment, hence broadening their horizons and eliminating biased thinking -
it
aids youth in rightly analyzing their
of words such
as kind, friendlv and neighbourly t. This difierence \\ as vi.ible
history and then forming beliefs regarding
not only on paper but, in fact, reflected a layman's views before and after watching
skeptics may say that such efforts are practically useless, I believe that they
the tape sent in by Indian children.
The tape bridged a communicarion gap between the youth of the two countries. I,
for one. had never heard that an Indian could desire peace. It made me realise how manipulative the media is and how it can actually mould a nation's psyche. A true picture is never portrayed and politicians maneuver the entire nation's ideolosv. It's funny how people on both sides wlsh for
peace but are forced into believing
otherwise. It makes one wonder whether
the conflict really does exist or it's all propaganda. This workshop inspired me to search for "the truth" (if that's what you'd like to call it). I soon learned that the history we are familiar with is also biased and even the textbooks at school do not oresent "a true picture." This hatred hts been ied to us and we have grown up with a bias toward our neighbours. Very few people have the audacity to actually question such beliefs - since people don't have access to "the truth" (i.e. the real facts), they never get an opportunity to do so either.
such complex and sensitive issues. Though
provide an oppofiunity for personal growth.
people who seek all that is good, peaceful and hopeful. Both are green, both are seeds, but work to achieve completely opposite goals.
Two Kinds of Green
Ahmad Hemmat Shah (Kabul) Every person has a favorite color, but almost every Seed likes green because of the color of the T-shifis they wear at camp, the color of the soccer fields, the color of the environment where Seeds find themselves anew, where they are encouraged to speak for
peace;
to
make the dream of world citizens come true.
But there is a different green in this wodd: the poppy plant, a green plant with a nice purple flower which unfortunately has dangerous effects on the world: it is the source of opium, which is the main ingredient in many illegal narcotics, such as heroin. Poppy cultivation is a world enemy, after terrorism, and almost every part of the
world suffers from it. But
it is very
different in my country,
Afghanistan, because here is the center for poppy cultivation, just as it was used as the center of terrorism, by people who don't work against our country but against the entire world. These people encourage people to cultivate poppies, which are green in color, and use it against my country. Seeds ofPeace deals with a different green. Seeds ofPeace trains
its green-wearing members to work for their countries and the world, to achieve their hopes and dreams and those shared by those
Learning Leadership Skills
Wahid Merzaiy (Kabul)
As a part of the SOP follow-up program, we had a workshop in Kabul with Seeds of Peace staff members Marieke, Zach, Sayarah, Feruzanand Jawed, the new SOP
coordinator in Afghanistan. We were glad to have had a workshop in Kabul after such a long time without one. We worked very hard in this workshop for two days. The
Afghan Seeds had a special interest in this workshop in order to leam the leadership skills. We were taught a variety of skills focusing on how lo carry oul our mission more effectively.
playing, we presented the basic problems in our community and society. The most touching part of workshop was when all of the participants shared their memories from camp and we realized how greatly Seeds of Peace had affected them and how they
We were first introduced to each other, as most of us are from different years and
themselves had become an integral part of
were not familiar with each other. We were tausht how to be a leader and a follower at the-same time, and learned how important
it is to be good listeners as well as good speakers. The workshop gave us a chance to analyze how different images
depict various messages and can be interpreted differently. We also discussed the social and political issues that encompass our
lives and how
to
combine these issues
with the
Seeds of
Peace spirit, to make
people aware of our efforls. Through role-
Seeds of Peace.
It was a great experience for Afghan Seeds to be leam how to leaders. I can only hope we can use these skills to end the continual
war, bad blood, hypocrisy and fratricide that plague this country of ours.
'l.r;. "-1
,f
.
/r
;i ]: f,? ,: '+
-t
:tl ilb'l
Violation of Human Rights in Afghanistan Mahmood Sayedi(Kabul)
Humans are naturally born free, and have the right to freedom of movement. Unfortunately, in the past two decades, attention was not paid to thesetinds of rights in Afghanistan. The most impofiant way a counfry can granr equal rights to all its members is through a constitution. In^Afghanistan, we now have a constitution but no one is respecting to it. Violence has been one of the most unacceptible
things for Afghan citizens. There is much violence against tfie needy and defenseless members of society'here. This problem is especially
noticeable for women. It is very hard for them to defend their rights and freedom. In Afghanistan, women are like
slaves who work all day. Many are not even allowed to go outside of the house. But some politicians and active
women who work in
government didn't stop their efforts to achieve their rishts.
They raised their voicels to reduce violence against them. But this is still hard: after some f-emale politicians tried to defend their rights, they received death threats. yet they have not stopped their striving, because they hope they will succeed. There is a path to the top of even the highest mountain.