Here is one that came in today from the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation

I wanted to let you know that I support the idea of having PeaceTiles at the 2007 C2D2 conference 100%. I think PeaceTiles were a wonderful addition to our San Francisco conference, and I recommend them for any gathering.

It was great to have these tables set up near where all the action was (near the ballroom, registration, the bookstore, etc.) where conference participants could have a creative, reflective outlet whenever they needed it. I think it was one of the things that made our last conference so special.

As a conference organizer, there were a few things I particularly appreciated about the PeaceTiles:

1. People could start working on a tile and leave their work-in-progress until they had time or needed a break later on in the conference. So it wasn't yet another activity that had to be squeezed into the schedule; plus it was neat to see what everyone was working on.
2. There was always someone at the PeaceTiles booth to help get people started and explain what this was all about.
3. It just added this wonderful splash of color to the conference - and to the conference photos!
4. It enabled us to add an artistic element that did not have a new-agey feel to it. It had more of a cool, hipster feel to it. :) Plus no one was forced to participate and made to feel uncomfortable because they had to do something artsy; people had a choice.

Anyway, it was great - and I hope Lars lets us do it again in 2008. Check out the photos of the PeaceTiles people created at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pea cetiles/sets/72157594379454040/ (they're all on one page)

And you can click on these links to see photos of people working on their PeaceTiles:

Hope this helps!

Best,

Sandy

http://wms3.streamhoster.com/faq /clients/ncdd/ncddpromo.wmv!

What a terrific group of Peace Tiles!

After Canton, I will write a testimonial for you, Lars.

Thank you Michele! Here is one from Dennis Kimambo

PT here in ken ya has been really instrumental and has helped us a lot to do what we do everyday,last Saturday the 31st of march we had a session with teenagers between the age of 10-14 and we were given a topic on home based testing, which is a news concept being introduced here, and no body was willing to facilitate to this tender age where all sots of question. Odu and i introduced PT to them and just told them put what you fear in relation to HIV/AIDS on the tiles and it was an amazing workshop where they themselves started talking about what they fear and we directed the conversation to household testing and got the message through, 15 country directors of FHI [Family Health International] were there and they wanted the 8 tiles that were made by the 200 children who we had divided into groups. So am hoping that they will sue the tiles in there day to day work and Lars i will send the pictures that we took that day tomorrow, i have been using PT as a means of communicating here and will continue with that for now as we see and gauge new ideas that come along with it.

Lars,

Peace Tiles are wonderful for adults, too. Wonderful to create something without concern about technique or right or wrong. We get so bound by rules, that it's nice to have an activity with no rules and no deadlines and no expectations. Was a very joyful experience for me in 2005 and I am expecting that to be the case at Canton as well.

My fear is not AIDS but Parkinson's as that has twice striken my immediate family. The central figure on my tile was a middle aged woman was joyfully dancing. She has Parkinson's and not letting that stop her. Of all the pictures in all the magazines, it was pretty amazing that I found hers. Was a large message for me, and gave me a moment of healing. Releasing fear through whatever means is very powerful, and I suspect that art is a vey powerful tool in particular. Besides, who can argue with something that involves glitter?

Lovely story, Debbie - thank you for sharing it - I hadn't recalled that experience from 2005 - very nice to hear it from you.

Meron brought cut tiles to Chicago. She and Evonne facilitated that.

I think it's important for adults to work on art projects. I think we forget how. I was a bit self-conscious until the joy overtook me. World would be a better place if more adults had access to art supplies. And just generally permitted themselves time to play. When was the last time you swung on a swing? Or slid down a slide? Or, better yet, made a snow angel? Can't think of more fun things to do.

Thank you Debbie! Here are a few words from a partner in B.C.

For the past year MTC has been working on the Peace Tile project here in Victoria BC. We started as a way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Earth Walk (April 22nd) here in Victoria. The theme of our project is Peace, Justice and Earth. We have spend a year asking people to create tiles that speak to the world they want to live in, the world they want to leave for their grandchildren. We have worked with organizations, individuals, families, elementary, high and university students. We are in the process of assembling our first mural and will be unveiling it's grandeur at this years Earth Walk (April 21st) in down town Victoria, where we will role the mural down the street as part of the march for peace, justice and earth. Thanks to all the participation and interest in this project/programme we have actually created more tiles then we need for the first mural and are already planning future murals to go around Victoria.

I look forward to sharing more about this project, each of the peace tiles created and starting the swapping process.

I'm also appropriating something Christina wrote elsewhere :)

brainstorming with some LiA folks about taking peacetiles into the IDP camps in Gulu.

We've got Breakfast Club peacetiles workshops starting again this Saturday for the night commuter kids in transition. About 100 of the kids who are now BC members joined late, and have not yet made their peacetile to leave on the wall at the center commemorating their time there. Which is good, since there is still lots of space on the wall! And as you know, the night commuter shelters are required to send the kids back home to sleep starting 1 May. The peacetiles process in this case involves a trip down memory lane for the kids - back to the first night they slept at the center - what smells, colors, sounds they remember. Their worst moments, their best moments, their most vivid memories, how they have changed in that time. They respond really well to it, and some of our kids have become real peacetiles experts. In short, Peace Tiles have a LOT of meaning in our community - i will always be grateful to you for that!

Ezra (a creative young LiA member who mark worked with a bit to brainstorm a bracelet display) has been up in Gulu for a few weeks and had a great idea for displaying the peacetiles that Mark brought as a gift to the community. He hated to mount them because they have photos of the kids who made them on the back, so when I last saw him he was drilling a hole in 1 corner to display them suspended from the ceiling. Can't wait to see how that looks!

I asked Ezra yesterday to get a picture of what they did with those suspended tiles in Gulu. Not sure they did what I'd understood they were describing but am interested to see what they did do.

Lars in this thread you are asking for testimonials. For our community of kids at LiA peacetiles have served as a vehicle for helping to achieve a lot of different purposes. When I put them all together it's amazing how versatile the peacetiles process is for channeling/harnessing/expressing many kinds of energy.

• We've used them as thank you tokens to groups of supporters. La Crescenta Presbyterian Church, who financed a lot of breakfast last year, now has one hanging in the church lobby. Onet members who supported the Solidarity in Style campaign a couple years back received individual tiles as a thank you for that support to our first ON campaign.
• We've used them for raising the children's awareness about other parts of the world like New Orleans in the wake of the Katrina disaster and the Darfur crisis in neighboring Sudan. In those workshops war-affected Ugandan children made the tiles for delivery to folks affected by the issue we'd discussed. (That happened through Onet members Rose Vines and Gabriel Stauring)
• We've used them to give the kids a sense of ownership in our community spaces. Kids in the Acholi Quarter made tiles that are on display at WE Center Kampala when we were recruiting members from that camp.
• We've used them for friendhsip building, when kids and adults at WE Center Kampala made peacetiles for WE Center Gulu. We also did a peacetiles workshop at the International school for your World Aids Day mural, and then took kids from that class up to the Acholi quarter as a way of introducing the school and their intent to run some activities there.
• We ran a peacetiles workshop with HIV affected children at an HIV clinic after they received the peacetiles mural made by the international school kids. Not the best venue, btw, but the project engaged some Life in Africa volunteers in a positive way around the HIV issue.
• We've done peacetiles by candlelight in groups as large as 200. Even in the dark, the energy that surrounds this very simple activity has always been positive.
• Life in Africa's peacetiles activities have been highlighted in THREE print publications, including an article written for Msafiri, the Kenya Airways inflight magazine, later reprinted in The eye monthly guide to what's on in Uganda, and in I KNOW! I CAN! a children's magazine in Uganda.
• Right now, we are doing peacetiles weekly in Gulu as part of the Breakfast Club induction. As you mentioned, this involves a trip down memory lane and the tile is intended to stay at the Center, leaving the child's mark there.
• We're soon going to start raising school fees for some of our orphans for the 2008 school year, and have plans to send 1 year sponsors a peacetile made by the child they've helped send to school.
• We have also found that people who visit the WE Center Galleries and see peacetiles made by our community's kids on display want to buy them. We've yet to come up with a clear strategy for pricing them or deciding which ones can be sold, but the demand is definitely there.

Somewhere in the back shelf of my mind is an idea for a PeaceTiles factory concept that I am sensing will be dusted off soon, Lars. Perhaps in time for some serious discussion about it at Cabot :)