Human Arrows
From JBPedia
Contents |
Human Arrows: The idea behind the project
For as long as history books take us back we can read about wars and conflicts all around the globe. And the conflicts don’t seem to stop. In fact we see more and more conflicts every day. In 1999, preoccupied with questions about the fundamental nature of humanity and the most pressing issues of our time, filmmaker Jeremy Gilley launched Peace One Day and set out to find a starting point for peace. He had a mission: to document his efforts to establish the first ever annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence with a fixed calendar date. Amazingly two years later, in 2001, the UN adapted 21st of September a day of peace. We call that day: Peace One Day.
During the past years CISV has celebrated this day on a local level. Actions such as sending out balloons, walking for peace or having concerts are typical examples of what has been done. This year we want to stand together as a world wide Peace organisation focusing on just one conflict. By pointing towards the conflict in Lithuania (more info below!), from all around the world we hope to make people aware of the different types of conflicts that are going on. And that not everything is about guns and wars, but sometimes conflicts lie deeper, and touch us in a way we did not expect. We call this project: Human arrows!
Pointing towards...
Vowing to defend family values in the predominantly Catholic nation, the Seimas (Lithuanian´s parliament) approved a censorship bill that aims to keep information about homosexuality away from children. The measure lists 19 examples of "detrimental" information, including material that "agitates for homosexual, bisexual, and polygamous relations," instructions on how to make explosives and graphic depictions of violence or death and information that gives credence to paranormal phenomena, hypnosis or "promotes bad eating."
“The subject of homosexuality is not welcome in our schools,” a Seimas worker who asked to remain anonymous declared. "We have finally taken a step which will help Lithuania raise healthy and mentally sound generations unaffected by the rotten culture that is now overwhelming them", said Petras Grazulis, a lawmaker who co-sponsored the bill. Grazulis, of the right-wing populist Order and Justice Party, is also seeking a total ban of homosexuality in the Baltic country.
The new law is violating human rights. Homosexuality is being compared with the display of a dead or cruelly mutilated body of a person, information that arouses horror or encourages self-mutilation or suicide. Also gay issues have become outlawed, freedom of speech and thought have become banned and gay rights have been diminished.
We, the Junior Branch, as a global movement seek to protest about this situation in Lithuania. We encourage you to look for local LMOs to work with in this protest and taking action in this particular problem in your chapters. Help us reflect and act about human rights!
Find more info about the law and conflict here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-07-14-lithuania-censorship_N.htm
http://www.crin.org/enoc/resources/infodetail.asp?id=20402
http://www.altermedia.info/civil-rights/gay-education-banned-in-lithuania_1180.html
Find ideas on LMO's to work together with here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_rights_organizations
Why the situation in Lithuania
When we started planning Human Arrows we soon started talking about what kind of situation we wanted to point towards. We decided on a few things:
- we wanted a situation that wasn't given enough attention by the media
- we wanted a situation that we had never heard of/didn't know anything about
(connected to the first point) - we wanted a situation where we could quite easily find a partner organisation
You can probably imagine how difficult it is to find a conflict/situation that would be good pointing towards but that isn't very well known. The thing about these situations is that they are quite silenced which makes them tricky to find. So when we found out about the law in Lithuania we thought it was perfect (and we still do!). Another really nice side effect of choosing this particular situation this year is that it quite clearly connects to our new theme - Identity.
We understand that there are many things that might affect people's everyday lives in a more fatal way (like poverty and war) but we also think it is extremely important to highlight situations of structural violence - like this one. One of the aims of the project, maybe the biggest one, is to raise awareness in the local community about the situation we point towards, but not just as in "by the way, there's this law in Lithuania" but more of connecting the situation to the one in our own countries. Here we can help LGBT-rights/Human Rights organisations get their message out and provide a space for them to share what the situation is like in our own countries, something we believe lie very much within our core an organisation.
So how do you make this happen
It is fairly simple:
- Contact an NGO
- Find out if you need any kind of permission to demonstrate. Sometimes these are needed, they're usually not very difficult to get!
- Find people and form a human arrow on September 21st. You can use the flyers (the pictures on this page) to promote the event within your junior branch. You can download them here flyer #1 // flyer #2. We recommend that you create a Facebook event once you've set a time and place. Please name the event "Human Arrows (your city)" that way we can easily see how many cities take part and it will be easy for people to figure out if there's an arrow in their city!
- Send out the already prepared press-release to the media - you can download it from here. We suggest that you translate it in to your language and adjust it by exchanging the orange text parts.
- Take a picture of it and upload it on JB Pedia
.... See that can’t be so hard? But okay, for those who need a few more details, please keep on reading!
Every JB all around the world who are intersted in working on Human Arrows for Peace One Day 2009 will contact an organization in their local community that can contribute with knowledge about the situation in Lithuania. Our suggestion will be a LGBT-rights organization, but other human rights organizations would be great as well, just as there might be other NGOs interested in working for a cause like this.
The NGO might be able to contribute with knowledge about LGBT rights - or violations of the same - in your local community or in other parts of the world. Or maybe they will be able to talk about violations of human rights in your country or others. The sky is the limit - we are convinced that there is an NGO intersted in working with us in very single corner of the world - so please see the conflict as a starting point and not a limitation!
The next step is to update the pressrelease and send it to the media (as many different kinds as possible! radio! tv! newspapers!). When September 21st comes the NGO will show up along side with you and your JB. While your JB (and maybe random people passing by?) form a human arrow pointing towards Lithuania the NGO will provide knowledge and hand out information. Then: take a picture. Upload it to JBPedia, and there you go, you have worked for peace and human rights. Makes you feel good, huh?
Where will you find an Human Arrow on the 21st of September
Please write your JB down if you want to participate!
Check our facebook group to see who else is joining the fun!
The Actual Plans
Feel free to write what your plans are for your human arrow here! when, with whom, what, how, etc... we can share our ideas in order to help each other out rock this project!
And then??
You might be wondering, we will all point towards the same place, upload our pictures and work locally. but then what? who will see our arrows??? guess what? EVERYONE! We are planning on putting all the pictures in a map (so make sure you upload your picture to jbpedia and send it to tatiana.fraga@mx.cisv.org) , also we want to make a press release, put all the pictures of the arrows up on google maps, as well as a video... well, bunch of stuff to let the world know what we´re doing!!!!
Want to help?
Contact any of these people:
- Louise Dane
- Venla Takkinen
- Katrina Baraquiel
- Lise Westermann
- Maximo Plo
- Louisa Wallbridge
- Tatiana Fraga Diez
- Tore Bang Heerup
- Ma'ayan Avidan
- Hanne Haukland Løge
Wanna see?
In this section, apart from the pictures, tell us more about your project (who, how, etc.) and all about the coverage you got.
 Vancouver, Canada |
 A school in Alajuela, Costa Rica |
 People from Milan, Rome, Forli, Bologna, Firenze, Padova, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Trento, Ferrara. |
 Manchester, GB. |
 Mexico City, Mexico |
 |Madrid, Spain. |
 Ingesunds Fölkhögskola, Sweden. |
 Stavanger, Norway. |
 Testrup, Denmark. |
 Darmstadt, Germany. |
 Great Britain |
 Bergen, Norway |
 Sheffield, Great Britain |
 Amager, Denmark |
 Lisbon, Portugal, after a Workshop with Amnesty International |
 Luxembourg |
 Grenoble, France |
 Lyon, France |
 Jönköping, Sweden |
Canada
Costa Rica
Visit Peace One Day Costa Rica to learn all about our awesome experience!
Italy
Great Britain
We didn't contact an LMO, but did the Arrow during our NJB Day in GB, and we're hoping to send the photos, along with the press release, to our local media soon. There was also a human arrow in Manchester and a Sheffield one at the train station.
Mexico
We worked with an organization called Repensemos Mundo A.C (site only in spanish), this organization works with all kind of things that would make the world better, that´s why they are called: "thinking the world through" (something like that). They managed to get more people that day downtown for the arrow, along with the juniors present, we managed to do an arrow that seems has more than 100 people (someone counted something like it) We were asked by the police a couple of times if we were members of a party, or we were asking for something,but when they saw we were really peaceful, they just left and made sure we were ok.
Spain
Sweden
Stockholm
In Stockholm we cooperated with two organisations: RFSL Ungdom (Sweden's national LGBT youth organisation.) and Sveriges förenade HBTQ-studenter (The Swedish Federation of LGBTQ Student Organizations). These two organisations were present at the square where we made our arrow and made sure information about the situation was available. They were also the people talking to people who wanted to know more. CISV Sweden handed out copies of the book Mosquito tactics. We had put big signs in both ends of our arrow explaining the situation, Peace Day and the Human Arrows Project. Quite a lot of people stopped by to read them and also asked us questions. Some of these people also stood with us in the arrow for a while.
Arvika
This arrow was made with all the people at Ingesunds Fölkhögskola. The initiative was taken by one of the members of CISV Sweden - Maria Hällgren.
Jönköping
We cooperated with the organisation RFSL Ungdom and where all together 30 people who gathered on a public square in Jönköping. CISV brought a number of Mosquito tactics (cisv sweden's newly published book about peace education) which we handed out to our fellow organisation and people walking by. RFSL Ungdom also bought some material from their organisation which where handed out. The local media came as appointed and made a small, but great, article "Human arrow against homophobia"which was to be found on the second page of the local newspaper!
Lund
In Lund a group of around 35 friends and strangers gathered on the main square to form the arrow. With a little help from a borrowed map and paper tape we set the direction towards Lithuania and actually managed to make people lay down on the cobblestones (good for the arrow that it had been a couple of dry days previously!). While some people were forming the arrow, others walked around to hand out flyers and talk to those passing by, explaining what we were actually doing and why. The LGBTQ-students in Lund were supposed to come but ended up not showing up. Instead, the local Save The Children-branch came by to hand out flyers on Human Rights, which was great!
The local paper, Sydsvenskan, had positioned themselves on the roof of the City Theater in order to be able to get a good shot. The next day we were featured on the front of the Lund-part, together with the Global Wake Up Call action for the climate, that had taken place earlier that day on the same spot. Quite the day of political action on the Lund main square!
The person behind the arrow in Lund, Kajsa, was also interviewed by one of the free morning papers, City Malmö-Lund, a couple of days before. Hopefully this means that a lot of people in the area became aware of the situation on Lithuania, thanks to us and the arrow!
Ängelholm
In Ängelholm, in the south of Sweden, a group of CISVers, friends to CISVers and people who just passed by and wanted to hang around with us for a while were gathered in the city park to celebrate Peace one day. Live music were played, cookies were given to anyone that passed by, we throw people up in the air with an parachute and it was possible to read about the Human Rights in different places in the park.
Except from this we made our on Human arrow. We informed everyone why we did the arrow and made sure that it was pointing towards Lithuania. Unfortunately we didn´t get the chances to cooperate with any other organization but decided to to an arrow anyway. :)
The local press was there and made a repotage about the event.
Longing for next years Peace one day!
