Community Partner : By Peaceful Means Intern : Cionne Gates Site Supervisor : Nawal Rajeh
What is By Peaceful Means ? By Peaceful Means has a mission to interrupt physical and structural violence by empowering youth through peace education , advocacy , and employment .
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Uploaded informational and engaging children ’ s books related to government , protecting the environment , and conflict management with family Provided a range of effective habits to manage frustration and anger through artistic expression and suggest a variety of healthy tactics in order to maintain peace Connected mathematics with the process of activism to demonstrate the building blocks of arithmetic essential to scholastic influences on the community
My primary goals for the summer were to become more actively engaged in the history and culture of the Baltimore environment and to find healthy conflict resolutions that are effective for the children and me . Initially , I understood that the main objective of the summer experience was to teach kids how to be peacemakers , but I didn ’ t realize how much I would gain from the start of my experience . My first task was to research the peace heroes selected and document their contributions to society . All of this year ’ s peace heroes are women of color with a wide range of activism across the world . One is a seventeen-year-old Palestinian activist who was imprisoned after slapping an Israeli police officer who was harassing people . While this is a major issue occurring halfway around the world , America is suffering from a similar problem in police brutality and the negative influence it has on our education system . Providing kids with a role model going through situations like theirs strengthens my desire for them to transform their communities for the better . Considering the misogynistic world we live in , it is empowering to celebrate the voices and stories disregarded by most of society . It ’ s a blessing to not only learn about these inspirational heroes , but also to be a part in advocating their stories .
Since starting my journey this summer , my experience has been filled with encouragement and inspirational people . During staff orientation , even though I hadn ’ t been involved with the programs for an extensive time like they had , everyone was supportive of the ideas I contributed . Some of our math lessons included graphing data from our personal interests and a shape scavenger hunt focused on structural impact in our community and recognizing its assets and deficits . My initial goals centered around the children , ensuring they have an insightful learning experience in addition to being motivated to make a difference in their communities . Also , I wanted to have one moment where I was able to make the kids laugh , and I accomplished that during the first week , with their help of course .
Through this experience , I have gained more understanding of the behaviors of younger children and how they absorb information . One skill required when interacting with children is patience . For instance , asking questions or giving them tasks requires high levels of patience as a teacher and human being , because they may not have all the resources at home that school can provide and technical difficulties can misconstrue communication . Going forward , I hope to provide the same courtesy to adults in my future profession regarding high degrees of patience . Education is such an important aspect to a child ’ s development , and I just hope I can help them achieve an optimistic mindset that they too can change the world .