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Future Vision

Sharing stories and dreams for peace from around the world are important steps in the cry for peace, but as you know, the journey is much farther. These next steps are really exciting our imagination. If they excite you too, please share your comments, below, and more importantly, contact me to brainstorm ideas we can implement in your network.

  • Train university students in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to start peace teams (our active project).
  • Revive and distribute the Are We Together? peace curriculum to primary and secondary schools in Africa, and beyond (our active project).
  • Catalyse our first song for peace, Nous Sommes Ensemble (We Are Together), with local activities led by ordinary people like you.
  • Produce an English song, One Global Family, and use it to energize our One Global Family concept. There are already easy actions you can do, such as posting selfies of you practicing peace in the #oneglobalfamily.
  • Develop peace workshops for schools or churches that mobilise ordinary people as peacebuilders in the One Global Family.
  • Explore music and dance as powerful pathways to inner and communal peace.
  • Write a book of peace testimonies gathered from my travels around the world: from Africa to the Middle East, North and Central America, Europe and Asia.

 

To learn more about these ideas, watch Carole's 2020 update video:

 

 
 

Music with a Message

Music is a very powerful medium for peace, both inner and communal. As a musician and dancer, I love using music and dance as pathways to peace. CryPeace has used music in various ways, including holding a PositiveSpin dance party, teaching 5 Rhythms dance for inner healing in Rwanda, leading a dance workshop at the Parliament of the World's Religions. With the launch of our first song, we're excited to expand our musical focus and develop new programs around it.

If you are as inspired by music as we are, we would love to partner with you to:

  • Host a 5 Rhythms-style dance for inner peace.
  • Host a PositiveSpin dance party.
  • Host coordinated PositiveSpin dance parties around the world on the International Day of Peace.
  • Produce new songs based on Carole's poetry.
  • Add new songs with danceable beats in a multitude of languages to our CryPeace Spotify playlists!

 

PositiveSpin Dance Parties

Sometimes we need to talk about peace; sometimes we need to embody it. That's why we held a PositiveSpin dance party to nurture peace through music, to reunite body and soul. PositiveSpin provides a joyful space where you can hear uplifting music, meet positive people, nurture your playful side, and move how the spirit leads you in other words, dance! Wouldn't it be fun exploring shared experiences via webcams at different locations?

 

Beautiful Resistance: If your prayers were a dance, what would they look like?

Every Friday, there is a protest at the Israeli/Palestinian wall. And more and more frequently in North America, there are protests for racial equality, rethinking the role of police in community service and mental health emergencies, as well as many other demonstrations for justice around the world.

At a Black Lives Matter demonstration recently, one of my peacebuilding friends asked, "If your prayers were a dance, what would they look like?" It inspired the public, who were on the edges observing the speakers and musicians, to get into the public square and dance. To simple drumbeats, they expressed their fears, hopes, dreams and unity by dancing to the same beat. What positive energy could we release by embodying more of our demonstrations for peace through dance?

 

Global Dances for Peace

Wouldn't it be awesome to hold PositiveSpin dance parties around the world on the International Day of Peace? If you are interested in hosting a peace dance in your location, please contact us. I'm curating a CryPeace PositiveSpin Dance playlist on Spotify for the event but it needs more international, multilingual songs. Please send me your favourites! Meanwhile, dance in your kitchen, garden, or community and tag your photos @crypeace2 #danceforpeace.

 

Longterm Dreams: Supporting Peace in the Middle East

Here are a few ideas inspired by my trip to Israel and Palestine that I would love to pursue if you know potential partners who can help fund and implement them.
 

Erasing the Wall: Envisioning Peace in Israel and Palestine

Peace has long been fragile in the Middle East, so in 2014 I followed a gravitational pull on my heart to visit Israel and Palestine to collect stories from the ground and meet with grassroots peacebuilders. I found the situation discouraging, deteriorating, and deep fatigue amongst residents and peacebuilders. An emerging idea to renew hope and offer positive change is a project to "erase the wall." It has several components:
  1. Envisioning in real life the future we dream of — a future without the wall by "erasing" it digitally where it dissects towns and streets using webcameras. Imagine displaying the continuation of the street or field on the opposite side of the wall, giving Palestinians a view of the Israeli side and the Israelis a view of the Palestinian side of it, enabling both to literally envision a future without the wall.
  2. Projecting a birdseye view of the wall onto the Internet, letting people who are not physically at the wall see both sides of it.
  3. Enabling Israelis and Palestinians, who are prevented from meeting in person, a way to meet socially in a non-threatening, non-political encounter, either through interactive video, or positive encounters like joint dances or peace rallies whose sounds carry over the wall.
It's hard to convey our hopes for this project succinctly, but a poem might say it better.
Photo © Carole St. Laurent: Visitors listen to people on the other side of the wall in Bethlehem.
 

May I have this dance?

I want to dance at the wall in beautiful protest
Cast a vision of the future in its shadow today

We could hear the same music, dance to the same beat
But I couldn’t see you, our hands couldn’t meet

We could set up a webcam, make a window in the wall
I’d rather you open it, I want to walk tall through the gate that encloses me like a prison

If this idea excites you too, please get in touch to request our Erasing the Wall concept paper, and how you can partner with us on the next stage of the project.

 

Water in the West Bank: Turn on the Taps

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, water is a serious issue. While in the West Bank, 74% of homes have running water, flush toilets, and maybe a washing machine, there’s one problem: Israel controls the taps. They turn them on sporadically, without notice, and infrequently. Since people have been living without reliable water for years, they have come up with strategies to survive up to three weeks with no water supply. But they are getting frustrated. They would like to know when Israel will turn on the taps.

To raise awareness and advocacy about this issue, we created a concept for an app, an experience, and an advocacy campaign to ask Israel to "turn on the taps." If your organisation is excited about using new technologies to promote people's right to water, the primary necessity of life, let’s help them turn on the taps!

 

Israel, Please Turn on the Taps

I live in a cage with very prevalent walls
that block me in and hide the sun

You hold the power of whether I can drink, or wash
Access my ancestral well, or dig one afresh

The Israelis on the hill have water all month
But I wait anxiously each day for a chance to fill twelve tanks

In my village I had a deep, pure well
I could slake my thirst, and water my groves
Now, I turn on the taps, and nothing flows
Except the sewage streaming down from the city on the hill

 

Get Involved

Thank you very much for your interest in CryPeace. Here are some ways that you can get involved:

I welcome your inquiries and ideas about partnerting for peace.

Sincerely,
Carole St. Laurent