Youth and Service
Asofa, Ghana – Kerim Tseney was honored by the management and directorate of a Ghanaian NGO - Peoples Environment Culture and Tourism (PECAT) to give a talk titled "The Role of RYS in Community Development" during the launching of the "Green and Clean Initiative," at Harlem International School Complex, in Asofa, a suburb of Accra.
Seebenthstein, Austria - The European football team EuroPhoenix came together for a football workshop in Seebenstein, Austria. In total, 35 young adults gathered in the seminar center from July 19 to 24, 2008.
San Juan del Alto, Peru - A small farming community in southern Peru benefited from an International Relief Friendship Foundation project in July in which volunteers built a center that can host local government meetings, a community kitchen, and trainings and workshops run by community organizations. In addition, they restored and improved a playground.
Utrecht, Netherlands - An intercultural youth project brought national and international participants to a Moroccan and Turkish immigrant section of Utrecht to help promote integration of immigrants into the Dutch culture July 7-17, 2008.
Tierra Nueva, Guatemala - More than 200 children participated in a special sports activity led by two sports educators, Diesa Seidel and Janna Gullery, as well as by Mr. Luis Navarro, coordinator of Moving Dreams, a project of Pro Paz. This took place in the Settlement Tierra Nueva 1 in Guatemala.
Antigua, Guatemala - Global Peacemakers and Religious Youth Service organized a project in Antigua, Guatemala, July 1-11, 2008 that included learning peacebuilding skills, doing light construction work at a school and visiting historic sites.
My passion is to provide opportunities for American youth, especially Haitian-Americans, to work together with young people in Haiti to develop their homeland and promote a culture of living for the sake of others. Fourteen people, including students from the University of South Florida in Tampa, left Florida on June 15 to spend two weeks in Haiti making connections with youth and adults and looking for ways to serve. It was a joint project of the International Relief Friendship Foundation and the Women’s Federation for World Peace-USA.
“Young people bring life and hope into such a seminar,” commented an Ambassador for Peace at the European Leadership Conference in Bad Homburg, Germany June 27-29, 2008. He appreciated the explanation of youth service projects in Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans shared by Collegiate Ambassadors for Peace Juan Pique and Matthew Huish.
With a 92-minute goal, the US women's soccer [football] team defeated Canada to win the Peace Queen Cup on June 21. The finalists and their scores were the same as in the inaugural tournament in 2006.
Two alumni of Religious Youth Service organized programs for middle school students in Choluteca, Honduras June 20-21, 2008, that included HIV/AIDS prevention education and planting 300 trees to counter deforestation.
At the beginning of the cool season in central Brazil, the International Relief Friendship Foundation partnered with government and NGO groups to collect donations of blankets and clothing to share with low-income people in Gama, a satellite city of the capital, Brasilia.
UPF offers various sports programs in promotion of peace in support of the UN Year of Sports and Physical Education.