WCC FEATURE: While adults talk peace, kids try walking in another’s shoes

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World Council of Churches - Feature

WHILE ADULTS TALK PEACE, KIDS TRY WALKING IN ANOTHER’S SHOES

For immediate release: 23 May 2011

By Susan Kim (*)


The story starts with Peter. Not biblical Peter, just a kid named Peter
who's a little bit overweight, who has bumps on his face, and, oh, yeah
– sometimes, he doesn't smell very good.

“Everybody knows a 'Peter,' right?” asks Dr Yanike Hanson, and 19
children nod an emphatic “yes.”

Hanson, an instructor within the Global Network of Religions for Children
(Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=1a5d1b0794ea3f431011 ), is 
guiding Jamaican elementary
schoolchildren through an exercise in peacemaking at the International
Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) being held in Kingston, 17-25 May.

Participants at IEPC are gathered to discuss ways to help people worldwide
work toward a just peace. The conference's themes include Peace in the
Community, Peace with the Earth, Peace in the Marketplace and Peace among
the Peoples.

“Peter is that boy that everybody avoids,” Hanson continues. “Almost
always, he's in the cafeteria eating alone because nobody wants to sit
beside him. Sometimes there are some little children who want to sit down
beside of Peter but they are afraid of what the other children might
say.”

Then she asks the children if someone will pretend to be Peter. A boy
volunteers, sitting down in a folding chair, and the other 18 children
promptly move away from him, some of them giggling.

“Now,” Hanson asks, “how would you feel if you were Peter?”

The children grow serious. Residents of Jamaica's poorest, most
violence-ridden communities, they know all too well how “Peter” –
even this imaginary one – feels.

Eleven-year-old Sophia thoughtfully raises her hand. “Kids make fun of me
sometimes. If I were Peter, I'd feel very sad. Very unaccepted.”

The other children chime in, eager to answer: “Embarrassed.”

“Depressed.”

“Lonely.”

“I would wonder, why did God make me this way?”

Even as the children talk about their imaginary friend Peter, their adult
counterparts at the IEPC were spending the day wrestling with the issues
surrounding peace in the marketplace – the kind of global
economic-related violence that leaves hundreds of people wondering: why
did God make us this way?

Finally, the pretend Peter answers, his chin resting in his hands: “I'd
feel awful. It just feels awful,” he said. “I'm kind of like Peter. I
mean, I'm a little chubby.”

With a little guidance from Hanson, the children decide they'd like to try
walking in Peter's shoes. They take paper footprints and tape them to the
bottom of their own shoes. The footprints say, simply: “I am Peter.”

They walk around for a few minutes, not speaking, but just existing as
Peter for a few minutes. Then Hanson asks them how they feel.

“Unloved.”

“Like I was a nobody.”

“Like I wasn't in the world.”

For children, talking about the universal and timeless outcasts like Peter
is a way to get them to talk about peace in a world with entire countries
that are outcasts.

The workshop Hanson is conducting has been used in Cuba and other countries
to get children involved in active peacemaking. Working in tandem with the
United Nations, the Global Network of Religions for Children uses a
curriculum that focuses on four ethical values: respect, empathy,
reconciliation and responsibility.

In the workshops, the children approach the unknowable question of why some
people are always left out. With some leading questions from Hanson, they
discover something they like about Jesus: he didn't leave anybody out.

Look at the lepers, Sabrina says. “Nobody wanted to go near those lepers
but Jesus tried to help them.”

She and the other children wonder aloud why we blame someone for being
different.

Vivette McCarthy, a mother attending the workshop with her daughter, raises
both hands into the air: “You know, yeah! I mean, if you were born, say,
with one arm shorter than the other, it's not any fault of yours.”

Which leads Hanson straight to her next activity: Moving into three groups,
the children put large pieces of paper on the wall. They trace around one
child's head, another's arm, another's legs, until entire bodies appear.

Then they write their wishes in the heads, their feelings in the heart,
their needs in the stomach, and their “wants” in the feet.

Their wishes range from the wide-focused – “a better world,”
“peace” and “love” – to the plaintive daily yearning “I wish I
had friends.”

While two groups said the feelings in their stomachs were happy, one
inexplicably elected to write “sad” in their figure's stomach.

Their needs: “salvation, “loved ones,” and, from one young girl,
“to be more attractive.”

Hanson gazes around at the oddly-proportioned drawings, asking: “Are
these bodies perfect?”

“No!” the children chorus, and then they gather happily back together
for a closing hymn.

But the pretend Peter lingers for a moment at his body, on which he has
drawn huge biceps. “Did you see what I wrote in the feet? I want to live
long,” he said. “And I want to have fun.”

[805 words]

(*) Susan Kim is a freelance writer from Laurel, Maryland, United States.

IEPC website (Link: 
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=93a4b1f8b10101a316ae )

IEPC photo galleries (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=5a595db22384465731a3 )

IEPC videos (Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=0feade4602f3b9200fa0
)

High resolution photos of the event may be requested free of charge via
photos.oikoumene.org (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=1bd2b20422b336d928c5 )


The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness 
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of 
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, 
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.



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