Peace and Youth

Logan youth learning to become junior master gardeners

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While visiting West Virginia State University, BAPS youth leadership group also had the opportunity to participate in the Junior Master Gardening workshop with WVSU Extension Office. At the training we learned how to conduct hands-on learning activities for teaching gardening skills. We hope to share what we learned with Logan community members at the community garden this summer. Photos: Lida Shepherd

While visiting West Virginia State University, BAPS youth leadership group also had the opportunity to participate in the Junior Master Gardening workshop with WVSU Extension Office. At the training we learned how to conduct hands-on learning activities for teaching gardening knowledge and skills to people young and old alike. We will use what we learned to conduct our own trainings in the community garden this summer.  

Wallen Calistin talking

Wallen Calistin leads a network of 20 to 30-year-old people who are working to bring about a culture of peace in Haiti, starting with their own neighborhood.

In his Port-au-Prince, Haiti neighborhood, 22-year-old Wallen Calistin is known as a peacemaker.

Patient, tolerant, and shy, as a young boy he struggled with how to communicate with his friends and neighbors in one of the most vulnerable parts of one of the world’s most dangerous countries, where a long history of structural inequalities and political upheaval has spawned a culture of violence. He could see a path to a more peaceful way of life, but bringing others along on that journey proved to be his biggest challenge.

ACE Students at ACLU Dinner

Top Row: Kareem, Khalil, Adrian, Elijah, Storm

Bottom Row: Lida, Rickey

As the West Virginia Economic Justice Project addresses prison overcrowding on a policy level, the Appalachian Center for Equality Youth Leadership Program explores the racial and economic injustices of the prison industrial complex and the impact this has on their lives.

2nd Annual Peace in Power Giant Puppet Parade

New Orleans youth are crying out for a stop to violence! Our response to this outcry is “The Second Annual Peace is Power Giant Puppet Parade” organized by The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in partnership with The Leona Tate Foundation, O. Perry Walker High School, Be Creative Studios and Skookum Productions. The parade was held on Saturday September 17, 2011 from 5-8pm at Duncan Plaza across from New Orleans City Hall.

Youth photo

On Wednesdays at around 10:00 am, the AFSC Chicago office comes alive. This is the day that all six of our new Apprentices take part in a skill-building workshop ranging from strategic planning to designing educational resources to lobbying and so much more.

IHTD winners

On February 14, President Obama released his Federal Budget for 2012. The next day, five youth from Boston and the Bronx sent a message to Congress about their budget priorities. They were there as the first prize winners in the AFSC and National Priorities Project (NPP) spon- sored youth video contest, “If I Had A Trillion Dollars.”

la casita

This fall, the Truth in Recruitment Program collaborated with an English class at Benito Juarez high school in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. The ten-week media project focused on the rich, historical activism in the Pilsen/Little Village neigh- borhoods, particularly the recent, captivating events that took place outside of Whittier Elementary School, just a few blocks from Benito Juarez.

Dear Friends,

We watch in wonder as Arab youth energy erupts in an historic display of nonviolent action for justice. But I am also filled with wonder every day in the Chicago office as I watch our own youth, albeit in more quiet ways, digging in to solve the problems of our own society.