Our First Week
In addition to our walking tour of Belfast Centre and the bus tour of the city, the GX team got a lot of work done during our first week. After our In-Country Orientation (ICO), we had a visit by Sheina Rigg, a child safety trainer. She went over the laws and best practices of working with children here.
Some of our Belfast partners told us about proper work place etiquette. Eileen Branagh of “The Beat Initiative” came with a few of her associates to tell us about the St. Patrick’s Day float that we would be using for our participation in a community event — a giant caterpillar. The Beat Initiative builds floats and organizes carnivals during the summer, as well.
Afterward, Katrina went over our community event, which included not only marching in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade but also holding workshops on Monday and Tuesday with local youth. We signed up for different jobs. I selected helping the kids to make musical instruments on Monday and working with younger children through arts and crafts on Tuesday.
Then we gathered with our counterparts to review our experiences in South Africa. Each pair went up in front of the group to present our discoveries. Afterward, we went over our work attachments. Rafiki and I were told that we would be working with an organization called Forthspring and part of our job would involve talking to youth on the streets - at night… in the freezing cold. We were both nervous about this since I’ve gotten spoiled living in L.A. with almost perfect weather year round, and Rafiki’s home is semi-tropical. Still, I felt excited about the prospect of interacting with kids from rival gangs (Protestant vs. Catholic) and knew that after growing up in N.Y., living in Russia for five months and also going to Boston University, I could handle the cold.
We were distracted by helicopters all afternoon because there was a bomb threat down the street from us — close to Forthspring where Rafiki and I would be working. All of the traffic was diverted and as I waited for my bus to come, a bus inspector pulled up to tell me that the buses weren’t running there because of the bomb scare. He was such a sweet man and he gave me a lift to City Hall so I could catch my bus to Mossley West.
On Thursday, we had a panel presentation with Mary Agulian, Toni Chi’ Vaughan, Katrina Newell and Anselme Nirere. Each of them gave a description of their organizations. Mary showed two great videos about L.A.’s Best. There was also time for questions and answers. Toni brought a big basket filled with costumes and props that we could borrow for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Then we had a terrific drumming workshop with Joe. He gave us all fun instruments, like colored eggs that rattle and plastic tubes that create different notes when struck. The GX team made beautiful harmonies together while following his fun exercises. This included using all kinds of different drums, rattles and other percussion instruments.
After lunch, Rafiki gave a half-hour presentation about his orphanage, “Les Enfants du Dieu Project.” I followed him and also gave a half-hour presentation about Create Now. I started by describing the problems that youth in Los Angeles face, with L.A. having the highest poverty rate and number of homeless in the nation, as well as more youth incarcerated than anywhere else in the U.S. I showed our promo video and the “Create A Mural Now” video and described our programs, using some examples of our success stories. I got great feedback from some of the team members afterward, which was wonderful. A few of the GX members enthusiastically asked if I would share our programs with them so they could use them in their communities. I’ve course I’m delighted to do that — it’s why I’m here! I’ve also sent a copy of my book “Mentor Youth Now: A Guidebook to Transforming Young Lives” to anyone who wanted a copy.
Suliaman Bangura from Sierra Leone then gave his presentation and afterward, we all went to City Hall to have a reception with the Lord Mayor of Belfast.
On the last day of the week, all the GX members had appointments with the staff at our Work Attachment Programs (WAP). Rafiki and I went down the road to Forthspring (which is five minutes from the hostel) and met with Deidre and Shona. We met supervisors Deidre and Shona. They went over our schedule and what we would be doing. Rafiki hoped that they could bring some of the Protestant and Catholic youth together so he would be able to use his technique to get rivals (Hutus vs. Tutsis) to dialogue and start to melt the ice between them. However, they said it wouldn’t be possible since it would take months to prepare the kids before even just a few might be willing to be in the same room together. However, the younger children are mixed.
We returned to Farset International Hostel (home base for our program) to hear the rest of the presentations. Daniel Giba from Freetown spoke, followed by Didier Kamali Rukabu from Rwanda who shared his work in presenting theater productions with a message to hundreds of thousands of villagers. Julius Kwizera, also of Rwanda gave a great presentation and Martha Chono-Helsley finished up the afternoon with a wonderful presentation about her work with ReachLA.
That night, we were invited by a friend of Toni to see a fabulous play called “EVA,” presented by Youth Action CLP Arts Apprentices. The central character is a humanoid experiment named Eva who experiences different emotions. In the final test, she has to endure the agony of losing the love of her life to her sister. Workshops will be held with youth following each performance so they can openly discuss mental health issues. All of the actors were actually youth workers, who will take the lessons they’ve learned back to their community organizations. We had a stimulating Q & A following the show. It was a great evening, followed by drinks at the Duke of York pub.
It was the perfect cap to a productive and fun work week with Global Xchange, to be followed by our visit to the Giants Causeway on Saturday.
