Vienna - a brief look back - a performance of a lifetime

Valerie and I just took a walk through the park in Vienna with the boys of Ato Pereferico, led by DJ Big. A final goodbye for this trip.  It is hard to explain all the emotions I feel.  We had just spent the previous hour with Marnie Gustavson, from Kabul (mostly) and Seattle (just some of the time), a most wonderful soul who runs an organization that cares for orphans and handicapped persons, reprising our few days of getting to know each other and setting forth our plans for future work in Kabul.

So I'm traveling back in time to the ballroom at the Hotel Intercontinental last night.  I walked into a long and very narrow room with a stage set up at one end and  fancily dressed tables for the 300 people about to come over from the World Justice Forum.  It was 6.30pm and Ato Pereferico were doing their sound check.  A handful of Forum staff people were present and the band had invited their local contact, Lea, who could translate for them.  So hip hop is not what I'm used to and the sound levels were going to blow out the room!! That's what I thought! We needed a plan:  how would we get the message across that these young teenagers coming from the favelas of Brazil were here to tell the World Justice Forum that they understand that they have the power to change their view of law.  We couldn't let the power of their message be overwhelmed by a speaker system turned on high.  And, since they would sing in portuguese, we needed to figure out a way to translate.

Lea became our onstage translator, a last minute role she gladly assumed (phew!) and we split the performance up into two parts - a more acrobatic first fifteen minutes to warm up the crowd at the beginning of dinner and then a second set with singing right after dessert.  These boys do physical stunts, spins, handstands, twists, that require chiropractic intervention or a stretcher, depending upon your age.  And, to my joy and amazement, the WJF folks at the party, were standing and cheering them on as they walked in and took their seats.  The narrowness of the room made it hard for people to see the stage, so many just walked toward the front and the sides, so powerful was the performance. 

When they came back a second time, Lea translated several songs.  Imagine if you spent your life being the hunted.  What if you felt that everyone who looks at you thinks you've done something wrong.  Their songs describe their lives and their aspirations.  These kids live in the favela, one of the poorest places in Recife, and two of the boys (their names are Dete, Jonas, Okado) will go back home to no running water.  There are days they have little to eat.  And, here we are, shepherding them to a gala affair in one of the most spectacular cities in the world.  What a culture shock - the hotels, passports, the clothes they bought, the nightclub they visited and performed at later in the evening, the walks in the park.  They were big enough to handle it all.

Their message got across.  People talked about the performance all today at the Forum. Marnie, Valerie and I were all in the last session of the World Justice Forum today, when one of final presenters from Palestine got up to speak.  These last words from the regional representatives were commitments by the assembly of future work to promote the rule of law from this forum to the next.  She said that their group had met this morning and had been inspired by the performance of Ato Pereferico.  She said that they would go home and reach out to their youngsters to put together a play to demonstrate their hopes and aspirations about the rule of law.  

To say the least, that made me smile.  And, as Marnie, Valerie and I talked about the past 3 days and our plans for work in Afghanistan together, we too were inspired by Ato Pereferico.  These kids have come far, and they have grown through a positive interaction with law - and, they both understand and respect it. We are fortunate to have been a part of their life lesson, and, just as pleased to learn from them how to take something that seems so negative upon first view, and turn it around.

A brief history of PeaceTones - Vienna and World Justice Forum II

On the plane to Vienna.  It’s been a long time between the starting point of Internet Bar, 2005 and now.  It’s a perfect storm, so they say.  The 7 billion people of the world could not be more disparate in terms of their economic situations – and I’m headed to the World Justice Forum to say that we have an approach.  PeaceTones!  Reaching out to the frontier of the internet, to the 6 billion people who are not online and say – have at it!  We are going to bring you everything you need to build online businesses, let you set the your own rules for business, link us all together in online marketplaces, and then see how we can get the money flowing. 

 

There are a number of people who have told me it isn’t going to get done.  Maybe that’s because I’m a dreamer, and the hard work of measuring is not in my province.   Well, that isn’t totally fair.  I have many people around me who are demanding metrics.  How many people will we reach?  How are we touching them?  Are we getting them the technology, the training, the online markets that they need to really make sales? 

 

There is definitely a generational difference in attitude.  Younger folks, my students especially, have a great inspiration to make a difference.  My generation (I’m 57, almost 58) is far less tolerant of my bright eyed enthusiasm.  It is fair to say that I have been less than successful raising all the money we need to make these dreams a reality.  Social entrepreneurship is tough work, and more groups are supporting it, including corporations who see future markets for their products being developed.  All I can say is that we are in a bad place in the world as it relates to poverty, health, and the environment.  So new ways of thinking, funding, and dreaming in particular, are the order of the day.

 

I remember back to 2005, when my friend, Rachel Barbour, asked me what I wanted out of  this idea of bringing justice over the internet to places that didn’t have internet access, were beset by war, devastation and poverty.  My answer didn’t make the grade – a common theme for me  (to my  credit, I listen and then work to change myself)– and, she said that we would travel to Harrisonburg, Virginia, and meet some of her friends at Eastern Mennonite University.  That led me to an encounter with several wonderful teachers/mentors, including Lisa Schirch, Anne Nyambura and my classmates in a course on Women, Trauma and Peacebuilding at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute.  So, it is fair to say that I brought my e-commerce act to EMU and though I had a lot of listeners, there were many skeptics in my midst.  One story encapsulates it all for me.

 

I was at EMU for a week in May, 2005, and Anne Nyambura from Kenya, blessed me with her enthusiasm and willingness to connect me with as many of the people she could find from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe as she could find – at lunches, dinners, and side meetings, I talked about bringing e-commerce as a tool for poverty alleviation.  My last night in Harrisonburg, we had a pot luck dinner.  Lisa Schirch, Anne, a couple of women from Kenya, and a Pakistani woman working for a German NGO,  sat down next to me, and I started to talk.  Immediately, the woman from Pakistan stopped me and said that by now, my story was well known.  She had a couple of questions she thought I should answer.  Was I assuming that I could arrive in a country like Pakistan, recently devastated by earthquakes, show up in a village filled with illiterate woman, no electricity anywhere, and then get online businesses started?   I felt very small at that moment.  I really didn’t know what to say.  And, I didn’t say anything.

 

I don’t know the name of the woman from Kenya who was sitting next to me.  All I know is that she stood up, put her arm around me, and said, “We need people like him to dream. If nobody dreams, we are never going to get out of the mess we are in.  We’ll start somewhere.  In Kenya, we’ll start in Nairobi.  We have internet access there.  We’ll get to the villages eventually.  But we have to start.”  From that moment on, I was on my way.  Yes, I’m a dreamer.  But I have purpose, and perseverance.  And with the possibility of an internet renaissance at hand, I committed to developing a plan for InternetBAr to come up with a project to bring online business opportunities to  Kenya, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, the W. Bank, N. Ireland, Brazil  and eventually 1000 villages everywhere in the world.  PeaceTones was born.

 

It took some time to develop.  And now, I am in Vienna at the World Justice Forum II. Our first albums are for sale on Amazon and iTunes.  From Sierra Leone and Recife, Brazil. And, our kids from Recife arrive today to perform tomorrow at the WJF gala dinner! 

 

Dreaming is good.  It leads to concrete action.  It’s a place to begin.  Thank goodness for all the people who care enough about these issues that they put up with my dreaming and help me bring my dreams to reality.  Affecting a few kids lives is a beginning,   We need a replicable plan so that we can bring our dream to 1000 villages.  A dream.  There you have it!

Vienna

I leave in a couple of hours for Vienna and the World Justice Forum. It has been quite a year assembling teams, meeting wonderful people in many places, and now, we get a chance to ask the world to join in the effort to link disadvantaged people anywhere to the online markets.