Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 3:23PM Some links in honor of women working for peace...
Information from Amnesty International
An interesting statement from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
An article from the Harvard Gazette
Check out these 1000 remarkable women working for peace around the world.
If you are a woman working for peace, consider this...
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 1:54PM On the surface One Million Bones could be mistaken for a simple project, big, but simple. Okay, enormous but simple. Do education and art making workshops, collect the handmade bones, install them on the National Mall. But part of where the power and the audacity come from is the sheer scope of what we're attempting together. 1,000,000 bones. When was the last time you heard of anyone gathering a million of anything?
Consider this: If Naomi had decided to do a project called 100,000 Bones, we'd be finished by now. Yep, we'd have exceeded that goal, even. But we don't think that would come anywhere close to having the same impact that 1,000,000 will. And so, we aim big!
And that means that we are always considering the steps we need to take to reach that goal.
One of our core strategies for 2012 is our Road to Washington campaign. Mini installations of bones designed and organized by volunteer committees in states across the country. Kathleen has been working so hard to get this organized, and we are getting there. We have groups committed in 26 states and almost daily we get google alerts letting us know about stories that have appeared in local papers about the work that each community is doing to make this project their own.
But, did I mention that we think big? So we and our partners at Students Rebuild have added a component. In addition to being the culmination of the Road to Washington campaign, we're also making April 28th a National Day of Action. We are wide open to the possibilities. Make a bone, host a bone making event, lay bones that you've already made in a public place for your community to see, tweet us, blog about us, change your facebook picture and make your staus updates relevant, or be part of the installation in your state capital. We are happy to see what you can help us accomplish with a National Day of Action.
If you have questions about the Road to Washington, email kathleen@onemillionbones.org If you want to talk about ideas for the National Day of Action, send that email to susan@onemillionbones.org
Save the date!
Make art! Mobilize people!
Friday, March 2, 2012 at 4:36PM As a writer working so intensely on a visual art project, I often have a learning curve. Really, before I started volunteering for One Million Bones, my last experience with clay was probably pinch pots in elementary school. I had to look up the word bisque, and I spend a lot of time letting people know that I’ll have to get that particular information about art materials for them. I have lots of empathy for people who want to participate in the project by making a bone who say, “I’m not an artist.”
One thing I did bring with me though was a familiarity with the role that symbols play in artworks. This is one of my favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor, on symbols in fiction:
“Now the word symbol scares a good many people off, just as the word art does. They seem to feel that a symbol is some mysterious thing put in arbitrarily by the writer to frighten the common reader — sort of a literary Masonic grip that is only for the initiated …
“I think that for the fiction writer himself, symbols are something he uses simply as a matter of course. You might say that these are details that, while having their essential place in the literal level of the story, operate in depth as well as on the surface, increasing the story in every direction.
“I think that the way to read a book is always to see what happens, but in a good novel, more always happens than we are able to take in at once, more happens than meets the eye. The mind is led on by what it sees into the greater depths that the book’s symbols naturally suggest. This is what is meant when critics say that a novel operates on several levels. The truer the symbol, the deeper it leads you, the more meaning it opens up.”
Many people have a visceral reaction to bones. Some people who hear about One Million Bones are entirely put off by the idea of using bones as a symbol, but many, many others see the beauty and power of it. One Million Bones is a multi-faceted project operating on different levels. The educational component uses the activity of creating bones to engage students in conversations about mass atrocities and genocide and also for younger students to talk about values, ethics and respect in their own communities. The fundraising component allows the creation of bones to generate funds to support our beneficiary organizations work providing direct aid and advocacy. On still another level these bones on the National Mall, made by a million people, testify to our common humanity. There is no denying that we are all united by our physical make up. And ultimately this project is a reminder that we belong to each other.
All of these unique layers are held together by the symbol of the bone. Bones are the physical evidence that individuals, people ever existed. We ask ourselves what it would have meant to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the mothers of the disappeared children from Argentina’s dirty war to uncover the evidence of their disappeared children, children whose bodies and whose bones were never found. What would a single bone mean to these women? We wonder what would have happened if the bones of those murdered in Rwanda had been piled on the streets of Washington D.C. In the face of that evidence would our Nation have been brave enough to call it genocide? What would we have done then? Would we have acted?
There is more happening when people participate in the One Million Bones project than meets the eye. The connection they are making to the symbol of the bone will undoubtedly impact them on a deeper level.
This is what poet John Ciardi said about symbols, ” … a symbol is like a rock dropped into a pool: it sends out ripples in all directions, and the ripples are in motion. Who can say where the last ripple disappears? One may have a sense that he at least knows approximately the center point of all those ripples, the point at which the stone struck the water. Yet even then he has trouble marking it precisely. How does one make a mark on water?”
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 at 3:42PM As we move on with the One Million Bones project one of the wonderful things we are finding is how people are taking the project into their hearts and how they are making it their own.
Today's post is by James Adrian, a student from Metairie, Louisiana.
"Recently, I have had the pleasure of going to a local school with my Key Club and helping the children create bones for the One Million Bones project, which raises awareness of the genocide occurring in Africa. Despite my outgoing personality, starting conversation with people I have never met before is not one of my strengths. So, I had some concerns as we pulled up to Harold Keller Elementary School, as to how I was going to connect with this group of children. But, as I stood in the back of the classroom with my classmates, laughing at my teacher’s enthusiastic Power Point presentation, I saw the children join in the discussion, laughing and shouting out their favorite foods, games, music, and movies, as well as the things they themselves valued, such as family, freedom, and the values that make up America. Seeing how enthusiastic the children were to make a difference in someone else’s life put my mind at ease and helped me make conversation easily. As we began to make the bones from clay, I talked to them about their lives, what they wanted to be when they grew up, what they were interested in, and anything else that they felt they had on their mind.
As we worked together creating the bones for the project, I began to think about the true cause of genocide: division. It starts by one group of people thinking that they are better than another group and that, for the good of the future generation, the “weaker”, “lesser” race must be eliminated. From Hitler to Stalin, many dictators have committed genocide based off of this mentality. It gives an “us versus them” mentality and demands that you regard yourself as better and higher than others, to the point of even no longer seeing the other person as a human being. It truly is an arrogant and selfish crime that thrives off of such feelings of superiority and separation that has left damage and scars that future generations will never forget.
Yet, in this classroom filled with many children of different races and backgrounds, everyone was more than willing to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves. They did so enthusiastically, even going above and beyond by being creative in the type of bones they made. They had fun and enjoyed it, all while making a difference in the lives of people they had never met. They may not have understood what exactly what was going on in Africa or what was being done to the people there. But, they didn’t worry about the details. All they knew was that there were people who needed help, and they rose to the occasion. They were diverse, they were united in a common goal, and it is such groups that leave behind the largest impact and make a meaningful legacy.
I am thankful to see such selflessness in the future generation of America, a generation that focuses on helping those in need and looks to help others any way they can. In a country that has been so blessed by God, it is easy to become so caught up in our comforts, pleasures, and circumstances that we care not for the suffering of those around us. I am proud of them even, and hope it is a characteristic that they carry with them all throughout their lives and pass them on to those around them. Thanks to them, I remembered that there is more power in diverse unity than arrogant uniformity."
Monday, February 27, 2012 at 2:18PM We encourage our groups across the country to share their events and the One Million Bones message with their communities. This article, in the Keokuk (Iowa) Daily Gate City, is a great example of that at work.
Thanks to Julia and the folks at the Daily Gate City site for helping get the word out. We can't wait to see the bones the people of Keokuk make!