JOSHUA SAGE & EVON PETER: 2000 World Youth Jam Alumni and former YES! staffer Joshua Sage made a connection through the Jam that led to the founding and sponsorship of the Student Action Network (SAN). SAN now has over 20,000 members who have successfully campaigned on behalf of critical environmental and social justice issues. The SAN web site (www.studentactionnetwork.org) features these campaigns as well as inspiring profiles of young change makers, many of them Jam alumni. One of the Jam alumni profiled in this way is Evon Peter, 26-year-old Chief of the Nitsail GwichÕin Tribe in Arctic Village, AK, who works for the preservation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. With EvonÕs story, SAN generated thousands of emails and faxes to key decision makers Ñ contributing to the GwichÕin peopleÕs tireless campaigning which led to the SenateÕs 54-46 decision in 2002 to preserve this pristine wilderness. INIYA: The 2000 and 2001 World Jams have supported a deep collaboration called the Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth Alliance (INIYA). INIYA creates spaces for young Indigenous and Non-Indigenous youth to come together using art, music, workshops, gatherings, and ceremonies to contribute to the global movement of Indigenous peoples for self determination. Founded in 1999 at State of the World Forum, INIYA gained considerable momentum as Jam participants learned about this inspiring movement and decided to become involved. More than a dozen Jam alumni have become key participants in INIYA, and their participation has played a vital role in the fundraising and organizing that have helped to develop and sustain the organization's evolution. For more info go to www.iniya.org. VIDEOS AND DVD: At the 2000 World Jam, Joshua Sage met Tashka and Laura Yawanawa. Together these three produced a video for the Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth Alliance (INIYA) that has helped raise over $50,000 for the organization. At the Jam Joshua also met the person that funded his trip to the INIYA gathering in Brazil to make this video. Currently Tashka, Laura and Joshua are working on a DVD of the Yawanawa people that will be a vital tool for them to document their culture and communicate with the world. WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: At the 2002 World Social Forum in Brazil, which drew 65,000 delegates from virtually every nation on Earth, eight of YES!'s Jam alumni (representing six nations) found each other and formed a team that helped to organize and facilitate many of the dialogues, meetings and debates at the youth related workshops. While these alumni spanned all four World Youth Jams held up to that point, they found an instant bond together and enriched the Forum considerably for its young participants. "At the World Social Forum in Brazil, I kept bumping into Jam alumni. It was amazing… My love and faith in the Jam is further reinforced by the testimonies of others who have been through the experience and whose paths continue to cross with mine at different places. I feel like every trail blazer out there in the world is not complete until they go through the World Jam at YES!. It may sound outlandish but it is purely my feeling as I think more about the tremendous impact the World Jam had on me. It is very powerful to have a one-week event that is so transformative. Three years later, I'm still Jamming." - Sowore Omoyele, 1999 World Jam alumni, Nigeria KELLOGG FOUNDATION: Lis Hirano of Brazil, a Program Associate in the WK Kellogg Foundation's Latin America office, was inspired by the 2001 World Jam to organize a "Jam" like program for 20 outstanding young leaders from Latin American who are funded by Kellogg (Kellogg is the largest grant-maker in Latin America, with annual giving in excess of $23 million USD). The event will bring these young leaders together for a week of networking, skills sharing, and community building, and it is presently scheduled for September, 2002. GOING GLOBAL: Kimmie Weeks of Liberia, founder of Young Environmental Ambassador Corps., came to the 2001 World Jam. Prior to that point, he had worked domestically in Liberia and in the US. But after the Jam, he was inspired to work for a healthy future on a global level, founding Youth Action International. He wrote: "I've been involved in organizing many national organizations but would never have had the confidence to go global without the motivation, skills and contacts I received from the Jam." As a result of the Jam, Kimmie was able to attend the 2001 Fundraising SuperTraining, where he gained skills that are helping him raise a $12 million budget over the next three years. He was also nominated by Jam alumni to be a Fetzer Institute Gilchrist Fellow. KIMMIE WEEKS: On a personal level, the Jam touched Kimmie Week's life very deeply. Having fled Liberia at 17 (where he became internationally famous for exposing the government's use of child soldiers in civil war through a UN report, ultimately fleeing the country for his life until being granted political asylum in the US), he had not been in contact with his mother for four years. She was desperately poor and so had no email access, and he feared that given the political situation, a letter from him could function as a death sentence for her. He writes: "My mother is unemployed and must struggle to get a morsel of food to eat or must walk long distances to get water. Before the war, when she could work and afford food, my mother always made Christmas and Thanksgiving special by cooking up a feast. In the last 10 years, she was lucky if she had enough to barely fill her stomach. In 2001, the Jam raised over 600 dollars and donated all of it to my mother. That year, she had the best Thanksgiving and Christmas since the start of the war. She felt blessed and touched because she never believed that there were people in the world who would give to somebody they did not even know." The Jam participants' emotional support gave Kimmie the strength he needed to reconnect with his mother, and their financial support gave him a tremendously meaningful gift to give her. "Nothing," Kimmie writes, "absolutely nothing, beats meeting 30 young people who are not only holding the keys to global change but who are absolute angels." FILMS AND PROJECTS: Shalini Kantayya (World Jam 2001), an Indian film maker who uses video production as a tool for social and environmental education and youth empowerment, gained fundraising skills and contacts at the Jam that led directly to her raising $10,000 to complete her current documentary film, and to making a life-long friend in the donor. She also states that since the Jam: "I now have a world wide network in different fields of positive action around the world. I don't feel as isolated or alone or stressed out about the world. I know that I don't have to do everything because I met world leaders working on all causes that need attention. I returned home with a family of people to call on for support. We are planning to build a youth art center, and (in collaboration with Art & Revolution) we are planning camps in the US and India." HELPING BHUTANESE REFUGEES: Hari Acharya, director of Youth Organization of Bhutan, credits his experience at the World Jam 2000 with deepening his base of support on many levels. On a tangible level, his participation led to a chapter on him and his work that now appears in Global Uprising (New Society Publishers, 2001), connection with a funder who is now financing education of three Bhutanese refugee kids in India, and one of the Jam participants sent a large supply of clothing and toys to Bhutanese refugee children in Nepal. CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: Indigenous leader Clayton Thomas-Muller of Canada teamed up with fellow Jam alumni Malaika Edwards, and staff from YES!, to organize and facilitate an Urban Habitat camp in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 2001. This event brought together Native youth from the Cree and Ojibwe tribes living in the inner city of Winnipeg with non-native youth from the US and Canada to build bridges of solidarity and partnership for a better world. Clayton and Malaika then went on to found together, in partnership with a team that also included Jam alumni Natalia Bernal and Maryam Roberts, a new organization called SolCity. SolCity is organizing a series of five four-day camps in 2002 to empower young people from underprivileged backgrounds with support and skills to make a difference for social justice and a healthy environment. KAVITHA RAO: Kavitha Rao, 28-year-old co-founder of Common Fire Foundation (an organization that supports sustainable living and nurtures young people in developing a life-long commitment to service, social justice and a healthy environment through camps and publications), came to the 2001 Youth Jam USA shortly after having moved to a conservative part of New York. She writes that: "The extended network of activists and visionaries I met through the Jams have given me the support I need to stick to my values when faced with challenges and obstacles like the ones we faced in carrying on our work after 9-11. The Jams have introduced me to a world of wonderful people that are interested in nurturing and sustaining lives of commitment and service." The Jam has fueled Common Fire and its affiliate, Camp Rising Sun, with innovative ways to raise funds, educate, and expand in their capacity to be a resource for service workers. Also as a direct result of her participation in Youth Jam USA, Kavitha was connected to and selected for participation in the Fetzer Institute's Gilchrist Contemplative Retreat Fellowship. "Last, but certainly not least, the Jams have introduced me to YES! and the wonderful work they do," Kavitha explains. "I am learning so much from their experience. Their embracing of diversity in group and in facilitation, with all the trials and triumphs that entails, has been incredibly refreshing and is incredibly valuable for anyone involved in a holistic vision for social change: one that unifies, bridges barriers, promotes understanding and collaboration, and joins forces to collectively work towards creating a better world." RUDY VALLES: Rudy Valles, 24-year-old director of Gang Rescue and Support Project (GRASP), and founder of Barrio Warriors, works with Indigenous and Chicano young people who are caught in the cycle of gang violence, helping them turn their lives around for the positive. After participating in the 2001 Youth Jam USA, Rudy put out a call to his fellow alumni asking for volunteers to help in a Denver, CO program he was organizing for Transform Columbus Day (also called Indigenous People's Day). Five Jam alumni flew to Denver to volunteer for four days, providing the program with security, networking, helping hands, and many other forms of support. A short time later, a different group of five Jam alumni pitched in the $1,200 necessary to enable Barrio Warriors to buy a teepee that Indian activist youth are now using for gatherings, ceremonies and celebration. The donation meant a great deal to the Indigenous youth involved, both in monetary terms (it is being used by youth in an extreme context of poverty), and as a statement of solidarity and support for a community that all too often feels as if it has been conquered and then abandoned by the Europeans and their descendants. The donation was further complemented by a general funding grant of $2,000 from Active Element Foundation (directed by Jam alumni Gita Drury). Also coming out of the Jam, Rudy was connected with the Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth Alliance (INIYA), for which he now serves as one of three North American representatives to the organization's leadership council. INDIGENOUS CULTURE : 21-year-old Peruvian medicine man Puma Singona, an alumni of the 2000 and 2001 World Youth Jams, gained support and confidence he needed to start Cusi Huanya, an Indigenous, youth-led organization in Peru that is committed to the recovery and preservation of traditional spirituality, song, dance and ceremony. DEMOCRACY IN SELMA: Malika Sanders (World Jam 1999 alumni) is the 28-year-old director of 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement in Selma, AL, which empowers primarily African-American youth in the south to live positive lives and to take a stand for social justice and a healthy world. In September, 2000, YES! sent three of its staff (who had connected with Malika through the 1999 World Jam) to Selma to join with the community of Selma in the Jo Gotta Go campaign, which ousted Selma's racist mayor Joe Smitherman after 36 years in office. This same mayor had presided over Bloody Sunday in 1965, and defeating him took a voter turnout rate of 90% in the black community, which was achieved in the 2000 election. "YES! was part of an effort that produced what was probably the highest voter turnout among the young (anywhere) in the last decade - triple the national average at the time. For the first time in my life, I saw people coming from pool halls, juke joints, crack houses, mansions, offices and everywhere to the polls. The bottom line is that when the call was made to people around the country to come and witness the voter fraud happening in Selma and to stand as a reminder that what happens in Selma is important to the rest of the nation, YES! did not hesitate to come… YES! participated in the making of history that rang out across the globe. Thank you YES! for being brave enough to talk the talk and walk the walk. Perhaps our world will know sanity in our lifetimes." - Malika Sanders, director, 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement |
| Recently,
we contacted three alumni of the 1999 World Youth Jam to ask them what impact
they felt the event had had on their lives and work. Here are their stories
and their responses. Mirsad (Miki) Jacevic is a human rights and peace program activist, and youth leadership specialist from Sarajevo, Bosnia Hercegovina. Before the war he headed the U.N. Youth Chapter and was president of the local committee of AIESEC, the largest student association in the world. During the war, Miki was involved in numerous projects to ease the suffering of youth and the elderly. In 1994, he founded and directed Collegium Bosniacum, an organization of Bosnian students in Europe. Out of that work grew the initiative, Academic Lifeline for Bosnia Hercegovina, which aimed at rebuilding the country's academic institutions. In 1995, Miki headed the Vienna office of the World University Service, dealing with education issues in troubled regions-he lived in South Africa, Palestine, and Northern Ireland during his tenure. He currently consults with many groups and organizations, including Harvard's Kennedy School of Government where he has worked as a Policy Coordinator for Women Waging Peace. On February 23, 2002, he wrote us: "I have been part of the international youth leadership movement for almost 15 years and have had the great honor of attending a number of events, meetings and gatherings around the world. Still, the YES! Jam continues to be one of the most amazing weeks of my life. It connected me with a formidably powerful group of people, with clear mission and awesome vision, who are changing the world with every step they make, every breath they take. That week almost three years ago created a deep bond that still runs deep and creates wonderful alliances to collaborate on various issues. In addition, it provided sacred time and space for healing, in which our imperfections and vulnerabilities were fully shared and embraced by one another. Finally, it gave me many new skills on a very practical level--from intercultural facilitation to fundraising (I have since raised about $2.5 million, mostly for peace-building efforts with young people), from conflict resolution to public speaking, which I have used on many occasions ever since. My support for YES!, its leadership, and Youth Jams is boundless--they are the excellent example of powerful new paradigms of leadership and they manifest it so wonderfully--we all feel proud to be called Jam Alumni." Nadja Halilbegovich is a 22-year-old native of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The war in her country began when she was twelve. During the next three and a half years of living in her besieged city, Nadja kept a diary, sang in the National Children's Choir which performed in schools, orphanages and hospitals, read her poetry on the radio, and had her own show called "The Music Box." She published her Diary at 14, and became known as Sarajevo's "Anna Frank." She came to the States in 1995, and since then published the sequel to her diary in Bosnian. Most recently, she was honored to be included in Michael Collopy's book entitled "Architects of Peace" along with Jimmy Carter, young Craig Kielburger and Mother Teresa. Nadja wishes to dedicate her life to the expression of human spirit through her talents in the arts and to serve as a global activist against poverty, injustice and intolerance. Recently, she wrote us: "I deeply believe that all people and events in our lives act like artist's hands on the clay of our mind and hearts. They mold us, change us...define us. Much is still up to our own individual selves, but somehow I feel that much of who I am is due to the creation of 'the artist's hands.' When I came to the 1999 Youth Leadership Jam I felt more deeply than ever the impact that those young people and their life stories had on me. I began to realize that there is no "Other," and that all people are OURSELVES. My friendships with the leaders present at the Jam are going to last for an entire lifetime, and so will the feeling of connection and interdependence. I remember boarding a plane after the conference, and feeling as if I gained another limb, another HEART. I felt tremendously empowered, inspired, aware and at peace. I am forever blessed and incredibly happy when I think back to the Jam and to all that it meant for all of us who attended, and through us, to all that it means to the World." Stephanie Jowers, now age 26, came to YES!'s 1996 AND 1999 Youth Jam. In high school, Stephanie helped found the Sierra Student Coalition, in the process overseeing campaigns that registered 345,000 new voters and provided the key congressional votes for the passage of the California Desert Protection Act. A graduate of Tufts University, she went on from the Jam to coordinate a national lobbying program on forest policy at Earth Justice Legal Defense Fund. Stephanie has since served as Deputy Director of HEAVEN: Helping Educate, Activate, Volunteer & Empower via the Net, Vice President of Minority Interest Network Corp., Coordinator of Education For Public Inquiry and International Citizenship, and is Cofounder of United Networx. In March of 2002, she wrote: "More than ever, I feel like all of us who experienced the Jam together are keeping the circle strong. Although there are many miles between each of us, these are the people in my life that continue to inspire me and support my life's work. It is hard to truly describe the kind of unbreakable bonds that this event has inspired. They comforted me on September 11, while I remained in Manhattan. Within the group, I found an incredible business partner. And when a fellow Jam participant accidentally gave me a computer virus, it was another person from the circle who worked tirelessly through the night to save my laptop. It is just cyclical like that with us. We have survived family illness and even a medical crisis within our circle. But, we have also celebrated wedding engagements, marriages, even childbirths together. And, aside from the postcards on my fridge that seem to continually track the circle's whereabouts, I always know that my friends are just a phone call or email away. The loyalty and respect within this circle has proven to be unbreakable." |