Building bridges

"How to react to a bear," chorus this bunch of girls when asked the first thing they learnt during their one week stint in Canada. A Bear? "Yes!" they say, laughing at my disbelief. Sarah Jameel, Tameez Bohoran, Hiyanthi Pieris and Charuni Pathmeswaran are four students of Bishop's College, Colombo who have returned from a retreat entitled International Partnerships through Education and Collaboration (IPEC) held from August 7-14, at the Limberlost Wildlife Reserve in Ontario. IPEC was a conference/ retreat, and camp for leadership and education in Northern Canada, where participants studied, thought, learned, and took part in workshops with experienced guest-mentors. Eighteen students from around the world gathered during the week to explore and learn at a private cabin deep in the forests of Northern Ontario.

"We are a part of the One World Youth Project," says Sarah explaining how Bishop's College was invited to participate in the Retreat. The One World Youth Club was established at Bishop's in early 2006 and has been working on community service projects in association with the UN Millenium Development Goals. "Soon after the establishment of the club, we began a project on the eradication of extreme poverty through the means of a paediatric health camp in a selected school." Their project proposal and ongoing work received rave reviews from the founders of the project and they received an invitation to participate in the IPEC retreat in August of this year.

"It was an amazing experience," adds Tameez, who will be sitting for her Ordinary Level Examinations this year. "When we got there, we were given a syllabus for the week's work. We were going back to basics and had so much to learn both from the mentors and each other." She went on to tell us that there was no electricity available at the retreat and participants were expected to use propane lamps during the night. "The retreat was all about building bridges and learning from each other."

For Hiyanthi, the youngest member of the group, the most interesting aspect of the retreat was the canoeing. "I never realised that it's so tiring! We had to canoe 30kms on one of the days and it was quite an experience." The seven days had proved to be quite strenuous both mentally and physically as they had to not only spend much of the time preparing for the day’s discussion, but also pitch in with cooking and cleaning up. "We had a Sri Lankan themed night and we all had to put our cooking skills to the test." Cooking for 18 people could not have been an easy task? "It wasn't, but we enjoyed ourselves immensely."

Whilst reacting to a bear was a simple survival technique, the girls were taught before they left for the retreat, the mentors ensured that all the participants were better prepared to face the world when they left for home. "There was one mentor in particular who proved to be very interesting. She was Wendy Cecil, who spoke on volunteerism in the morning and Madam Zoom, her alter ego who would read poetry and tell stories in the evening. There was no e-mail and no contact with anyone outside the retreat. That itself was an experience."

Another speaker who made a huge impact on the girls was Tlakaelel, who spoke on passing judgment, observing cultures and learning from each other. He also went on to perform the "For Colours Ceremony" which encourages the concept of one world with one culture and the cosmic conception of life.

Their syllabus for the week included discussions on culture, leadership, volunteerism, judgment, religion, imperialism and conflict resolution. "We feel that we managed to solve a number of misconceptions. For example, many of the participants assumed that the word “Jihad” from Islam was associated with terror and we managed to sort that out. Also, there was one instance where we were given the religious books of other religions and were asked to discuss their contents. Everyone learnt that at the end of the day the core of all religions remain the same."

At the end of every day, the participants would be asked to form what was called the closing circle, where a question would be proposed and the participants would all take a chance at answering the same. "We were asked to draft out where we would like to see ourselves in eight years, then it became five years and so on and so forth until we were down to this year. It gave all of us an insight into ourselves."

On their return the girls made a presentation to their schoolmates on their experiences and are thrilled with the response. "A lot of our students now want to join the club and become a part of the One World Youth Project."

A video diary was maintained throughout the retreat and will be available to the participants who have also been appointed co-authors of a book which will document all their experiences at the retreat. "These girls were always smart," smiles Mrs. Maalika de Silva, who together with Mrs. Sarojini Prelis are the teachers in charge of the One World Youth Club at school. "But I must say that the experience has made them all the more smarter!"

The girls go on to say that it was not only the retreat but the entire process of travelling by themselves that made the experience all the more fulfilling. "Be it at the visa office or when transiting there was much that we had to learn. We were lucky that there were always people to help us, either at the airport or when we wanted to do a little sightseeing." Their next goal? "Well, IPEC hopes to make this an annual event… so…" Let's just leave it at that! – RHG