Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative

I did meet Mr. Beah, while he was doing a book-signing at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. It would be impossible to sum up all that he expressed, and how very inspiration he is. He did express that he, through his book “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier”, wanted to reach out to the humanity within people instead of just depicting war, because that would just advocate war and glorify it.

I suggested the topic of child soldiers when we were brainstorming ideas for the movie we were going to make in the VVP program because the movie “The Invisible Children” inspired me. However, in the beginning I was unsure if that would be a good topic because we did not really have any idea to what the individual experiences of child soldiers were, and if we had depicted something incorrectly it may have become something very controversial. I may have felt concerned about making a machinima on the topic, but at the same time…I really wanted to learn more about it because I felt as though it was a major human rights violation (and a children’s rights violation on top of that). Initially, I went to meet Ishmael to further research the use of child soldiers, since he was a primary resource. However, after meeting him, I felt…that touch of humanity. I was disgusted by the reality, and intrigued by his strength and capability of reminisce upon something so devastating. At the same time, meeting him bridged that huge gap there is between New York and Sierra Leone. He truly made “child soldiers” come alive for me; before meeting him…they were innocent victims I read about on paper…it is so much different when that person that is depicted fighting on paper is in front of you explaining how the war had an impact on him. So, meeting him gave me new hope and determination to continue making our movie on child soldiers and see it through to the end. To tell you the truth, having him as a guest speaker, basically made this my dream event—and the fact that I had the opportunity to facilitate just made it that much better (and nerve-wrecking).

My part in the event was basically to facilitate the beginning until Ishmael Beah was introduced and then everyone would just listen to him and ask him questions if they wanted to. So, the process was not hard. The only thing I was concerned about was time. I knew I wanted to wait at least five minutes after the schedule time in case people came in late, but at the same time that only gave me 25 minutes to go through my part of the workshop. My part of the workshop was to show “A Child’s War” but before showing them the movie, I did want them to have some idea about what a child soldier is and where they exist. I thought it was important to teach them that so they have more respect towards Ishmael Beah when he speaks. Also I wanted them to know more about him before they listened to him speak so there would be less confusion. The event listings go in increments of 30 minutes, so we could only make the event start at either 3 or 3:30. Of course, I could have told everyone to come in at 3:20, but that would be an odd time expectation for an event. However, one thing that I was extremely impressed with was that the majority was either on time or early. I guess you can say, “Oh well all they have to do is press a teleport button and they can be there on time, unlike in real life when you have to take transportation to get there”~ but there are other obstacles present when a computer is involved. For example, sometimes I open up my web browser to do some research but once I see the headlines from some news stories I get completely distracted—and that is something that can easily happen while using Second Life…so I was very impressed by the fact that everyone made it there on such good time.

But trying to manage the time was kind of hard for me, especially since my timing had to rely so much on Ishmael’s time of arrival and in order to know when he would arrive I would have to rely on Saryn. I want to thank Saryn Fanwood for relaying the questions from the teens to Ishmael Beah. Also, I would like to thank Mercury—and I really have no idea how to thank him because he has been so much help. It is really thanks to him that this event came together, since he helped me proofread, promote, set up the event and followed through with everything. Rafi, of course, I have to thank him for first giving me this opportunity and for making it possible. He not only gave me the opportunity to facilitate, but so many teens the opportunity to be inspired by the story of the former child soldier. And of course…what would I do without all of people who actually attended the event? I expected~ roughly 5-9 people to show up because no one really knew me so I did not expect them to show up to an event with my name on it. But we had so many people show up that it was exiting and slightly intimidating. I am very grateful to all the teens that showed up, and the Lindens as well, because they were very supportive and cooperative. So thank you all! Oh and I almost forgot, Ishmael Beah (although he may never see this random blog by some girl he probably does not even ever remember meeting) is very much to thank as well; if he had not agreed to be streamed then maybe people would not be as likely to show up to the event. So thank you!

So, I think I have talked about me-me-me enough! I know there were MANY people who could not attend the event because of time zone issues. I myself could not stay to the end because it was getting late and I had exams and homework for the next day to complete. So, I can understand how some people felt like they missed out. So~ while Ishmael Beah was speaking, I took some notes so I could share them with everyone. In addition, I also had help from Mariel and Rafi who filled in the blanks from the last 20 minutes I missed.

My Notes:
He initially used writing to take out his anger, and later went onto talking about his country. No one even knew Sierra Leone, and people began to know more about it because of the war. He explained in his book, how he felt during the war. He did not want all the suffering of all the children to be forgotten, which is why he wrote the book even though it is a hard topic to talk about. He said that people have a romantic view of war, but it is anything but romantic, it just kills and destroys life. Many people find reasons to justify war, but the real purpose is to kill other people. It’s ridiculous to go into war, and kill each other, instead of sitting down and talking it out. By dehumanizing others, you in turn dehumanize yourself, but many people do not want to believe that. He read a excerpt from his book about the first time he returned home after it had been wrecked by war. When he came back, at the time he was only 12 years old, he heard women cry, shirtless children crying because they had been orphaned, dogs abandoned, his grandmothers village was deserted. A man, who tried to escape, had his entire family shot by the rebel groups. As a child, Ishmael felt terrorized as he passed towns and villages because they feared he may be a child soldier. They had to find hope in every little thing. Hope that their parents were alive. No choice but to join the military groups, it was a join or die situation. If you did not carry out the commands the military commanders gave you then you will be killed, so if you were told to shoot someone you had to shoot. As time passed, he became close to these people (the child soldiers and adult ones) like a family. If he only wanted to write about just the war, he would glorify the violence, but just writing about them would not stay with people—and would not see the humanity behind the war and see what happens to people who are affected by war. He wanted a common humanity.

Rafi Added:
Question Posed to Ishmael: What are things in US culture that are dehumanizing, just as being a child soldier in Sierra Leone was?
Response: Things in US - gang violence, poor and destitute neighborhoods, juvenile centers are also extreme circumstances, such punitive messages in the US as opposed to rehabilitative measures. In Sierra Leone, when someone stole something from a person, the punishment was to work with that person on a farm for a number of days. So the punishment was to repair that which was damaged, and this is not the case in the United States.

Question Posed: What can people in this country do?
Response: Expose themselves to the world! But he cannot tell you what exactly your contribution should be, but support international standards to prevent things like this from happening.

Mariel’s Notes! (I am quoting most of the things others said because I do not want to tamper with it and potentially change meaning of something because of misinterpretation)

“I [Mariel] asked, ‘What do you think of the fact that most people know about Sierra Leone is related to war? Now that you live in the US, how do you see Sierra Leone?’ He answered that he went to Sierra Leone one year ago and, after all that he went through, he could see the land was ‘in his veins’ (he didn’t say it quite like that, but I forgot the exact phrase) - after all, it is a very important part of his life. He also said that the fact that people see Sierra Leone only as a country where war takes place is real just because of the fact that people are unwilling to see it otherwise (he mentioned TV people specially). Also, in the answer he gave before he said that life in Sierra Leone goes on, and that he’s actually seen some people in Sierra Leone who are happier than many people in the US.

Someone from the audience asked what must be done about it. He answered that, so far, the action taken against the issue hardly involve rehabilitative measures. He says that people aren’t really doing something to fix the problem, as what needs to be done is repair what’s been broken rather than isolating it (people). More specifically, he said that governments must work in the implementation of what’s being agreed and also must engage the governments that aren’t directly affected by the problem, or that just don’t take it seriously. Also, governments must pay attention to the set goals, and make sure that they hold the guilty people accountable for what they are doing to children. As of actions that can be taken by individuals, he said that the very first step is to expose oneself to the world and learn about the issue itself, where it’s taking place. Using that as a basis, find out what you can do (and there’s no universal law for that as each people have to find out what their own contribution will be).

Specifically, to answer the ‘US people’ bit, he said that the US government gives military aid, so what people can do is be in touch with their senate by sending letters of points the representatives have to take into account. He mentioned the specific case of a document in the HRW website, encouraging people to print it out, sign it and send it to the Senate. He also said he has a foundation.

He was asked about his family. He said he tries to convince himself of the fact that they are still alive, but that they must probably aren’t; if they were, they would have contacted him already.”

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So overall, it was a great event to run. Now I know I have to make my next event even better because now the starting standards have already been set high! But I will try my best to make my next event more interactive and as fun as possible. I am sorry if you could not attend, but I hope compiling some of this data helps you get some idea of what he was talking about. If you have any questions, feel free to comment or send them to me! You guys can find more pictures on flickr!