During the weekend of October 23-24, 2009, approximately 250 youth and volunteer adults came together at the Drawbridge Inn in Northern Kentucky for the annual National CISV Conference. Each year, adult CISV volunteers meet to elect new leaders and plan for the year. Youth and youth leaders gather for team building and reflection activities.
On Friday evening, October 23, Kim Keller and Abby Nathanson of the Shinnyo-en Foundation as well as Chelsea Pidgeon and Nate Biggs, Youth Leaders from Youth-to-Youth San Ramon, CA, facilitated a two hour workshop with the combined group of all CISV youth and adults. The facilitators shared Shinnyo-en philosophy as well as information and stories elucidating Shinnyo-en Foundation Six Billion Paths to Peace initiative. Throughout the evening, the facilitators discussed the ways in which the Shinnyo-en Foundation, Youth-to-Youth, and the work of CISV catalyze each other’s mission and goals to create peace in the world. Chelsea and Nate lead the group in Youth-to-Youth “energizers” and demonstrated ways in which the group could internalize their organizational values through trust and team work. The Friday night session ended with the creation of 250 individual and collective peace flags, which described each participant’s path to peace. These flags were hung on the walls and encircled the conference room for the remainder of the weekend.
On Saturday morning, October 24, the facilitators teamed up again to deepen understanding about the Six Billion Paths to Peace initiative with CISV youth. During the 2 hour session, youth worked together to define their values and discussed the ways in which they personally and collectively cultivate peace in their daily lives. Over 100 Youth each wrote down their values on a slip of paper and placed them in a balloon. Then, the youth worked together to maneuver their balloon-protected values on and off of a large parachute as a group. Another metaphor for team work, youth responded excitedly to the instructions to listen to one another and work together. Several leaders emerged among the group, shouting instructions to “lift!” and “lower!” the 100 foot parachute on and off the floor in order to quickly move the balloons. By the end of the activity, there were so many balloons strewn across the floor that it was difficult to walk!
For the final activity, youth scrambled to find and pop their balloon and liberate their value inside. The facilitators then broke the large group into smaller groups and conducted the “Roots and Fruits” activity in which everyone wrote their value in the “roots” of an image of a tree and then brainstormed the ways in which their values manifest in everyday life through their actions or “fruits”. Each group buzzed with discussion about their daily lives, school, and family. By the end of the session, 5 colorful trees emerged with the values and actions of each group. CISV youth and youth leaders insisted on sharing a group hug with facilitators. The facilitators thanked the CISV group for their work and promised to attend the annual CISV meeting next year.
