January 2004 Edition of the Grassroots Good News

["The Threshold Foundation" <luber at dieschwelle.de>]

GGN January 2004 / Table of Contents:

1) To write down the Human Rights
2) Beyond the fronts of the Ugandan civil war
3) Peace Work in Two Schools in Germany


1) To write down the Human Rights 

ÑINSCRIRE - To write down the Human Rights" is an initiative of the Belgian artist
Francoise Schein . The purpose is to write the Declaration of Human Rights, ratified
in 1848, in public places of many cities world wide and thereby fix them in the public
consciousness. Since 1989 "Inscrire" has been implemented in Paris, Brussels, Lisbon,
London, Hai‚fa, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro and now also in Bremen. 

The Bremen part of the project, partially funded by the Threshold Foundation, has
its place in the Bremen "Rhododendronpark", a large green area with plants from all
over the earth. On bronze plates along the pedestrian ways of the park all articles
of the Declaration of Human Rights can be read. The aim is to notify that misuse of
nature is also a violence of human rights. The ÑBremen Garden of Human Rights" shows
thereby its special obligation towards the principle of sustainability and the Agenda
21 process.



2) Beyond the fronts of the Ugandan civil war 

The civil war in Acholi (northern Uganda), in which the fighters of the Lord¥s Resistance
Army (LRA) terrorise the Acholis, has been going on since 1986. During this time approximately
20,000 civilians, mostly children and young people, have been kidnapped, enslaved
and recruited by force in an area of about 30,000 square meters (about the size of
Brandenburg). The LRAís struggle is marked by bitter cruelty and has already depopulated
many villages. Whilst the objective of the LRA was initially the campaign against
the Ugandan government troops, their target is now their own population. Supported
by the Sudanese government, the LRA is now avoiding confrontation with the government
army, and is instead carrying out systematic raids against villages, schools, health
centres and civilians in the Acholi area. In 1997 an inter-faith association of Christian
and Muslim leaders was founded to campaign for peace (ARLPI) in this conflict area.
Since then, ARLPI has been holding courses for peace education, establishing regional
peace committees and training men and women to become "peace animators". It also plays
an active role in the peace negotiations between the fighting ethnic groups. In addition
to ARLPI, the Catholic Church is particularly active in its efforts to return and
reintegrate thousands of traumatised children who have escaped from the rebels. Help
is given to the children in the form of symbolic acts to enable them to gradually
put their past as child soldiers behind them and to begin to lead a normal life again
in their villages. To do this, the church is particularly reliant on approximately
500 laypeople who live in the area and therefore know the conditions best. They are
trained as voluntary community advisors and actively initiate and support the process
to reintegrate the children.
Source: Hans-Peter Hecking (Missio Deutschland): Terror in Acholi land, in: Frankfurter
Rundschau 2 July 2003, page 7, websites: www.missio.de and www.acholipeace.org



3) Peace Work in Two Schools in Germany

Within the Bremen Peace Award 2003 of The Threshold the following two proposals had
been shortlisted:

The Duisburg municipal community secondary school is a "School without Racism ñ School
with Courage" which opposes violence and racism through various projects and campaigns
(Contact: denskus at aol.com)

Project coordinator Hanna Denskus writes: 

We are a School without Racism - School with Courage. We were officially awarded this
title by Aktion Courage, the German coordinators in Berlin on 15 February 2002. School
without Racism ñ School with Courage is an international project for school pupils
which began in 1988 in Belgium. The aim of this project is to combat violence and
racism with lasting effect and to continue along this path through pro-jects and campaigns.
There are 143 schools in Germany (as at December 2002), and two in Duisburg. Schools
are awarded this title on the basis of a joint vote of all those involved in the school
(70% in favour) and evidence of projects. At our school this project is part of our
agenda to renounce violence and improve the school environment and coexistence. We
work together with companies and institu-tions in order to involve the local area
and other parts of the city (Duisburg Univer-sity, business, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation,
preventive police departments, vio-lence-addiction-abuse and many more). The local
press, local television and local radio report on our projects and campaigns. We regard
the long-term project as a common path towards a world with less violence. 

Groups demonstrating particular commitment are: 1. Project group 6a/b: Pupils meet
after classes to publicise campaigns on the blackboard. It was this group that introduced
the project to our school and have since supported it and continuously breathed new
life into it. 2. Arbitrators: They meet after classes for training. They are aware
of their special responsibility and believe in resolving conflict without vio-lence.
3. Fifteen pupils from class 7b, who meet once a month and on special oc-casions,
such as 9/11, to tend to memorials at the Trompeter cemetery. They weed, water and
plant flowers, even during the holidays. There are three burial grounds for Russian
and German soldiers and Ukrainian forced labourers there. His-tory lessons are often
held at the cemetery. They are working to preserve the memory. 4. What people do to
each other: a project by classes 9a/b/c (history and German): Germanyís Dark Age:
Perpetrators and Victims in the Third Reich.


School Project "To remind of Jewish Children - To Help Indian Children", Delmenhorst/Germany

One of the focal points of the project is remembering the fate of Jewish schoolchil
dren in Delmenhorst by naming streets after them and writing their names as graf-fiti.
As the fate of the Jewish children is similar to that of the Indian Mayan chil-dren,
the project group is also involved in the school twinning of the Delmenhorster Berufsbildenden
Schule (vocational school) with a self-help school in Guatemala, which aims to revive
Mayan culture through lessons in the Mayan language and learning about Mayan history
(Contact: bbs1del at ewetel.net).

The teachers involved in the project, Anne Frerichs and Klaus Margraf, write:

Our project is one of continuation, following on from one course of values and standards
to the next. It began with the ter Berg children: the Delmenhorst municipal archives
contain a letter, in which the head of the protestant school in Deichhorst informs
the mayor that there are two half Jewish children at his school. Shortly after that,
the family fled to Holland. Following the occupa-tion of Holland, they were arrested
and killed in Auschwitz. At our request, the town council de-cided to name a street
after Sigmund and Hedwig ter Berg.

The next step was to find out which of the at least 11 other pupils who (according
to a list in the municipal archives) had to leave Delmenhorst schools at that time,
actually survived. Our pupils came up with the idea of creating a work of graffiti
containing the first names of the Jewish schoolchildren as a commemoration by schoolchildren
expressed in a way that is relevant to them.

We collect money for the autonomous Mayan school Ajaaw Tukur, our informal partner
school. This school aims to revive Mayan culture by holding lessons in the native
Mayan language and studying Mayan history. 

Our last request for the time being is that the town council use the money saved by
not educating Jewish children to the advantage of Indian schoolchildren ñ simply by
sponsoring 11 Indian schoolchildren, and that other towns then also join this initiative.


____________________________________________________

Grassroots Good News come to you from The Threshold Foundation

Editor:			Dr Burkhard Luber
Contact:		mailto:Luber at dieschwelle.de
English Website at 	www.dieschwelle.de

Grassroots Good News are an electronic mailing list which presents
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