Videoconferencing Out on a Lim

Project “Empower Peace” has been connecting high school youth in the United States with their contemporaries in the Arab and Muslim world for a few years now. This “connection” is made possible through video conferencing and the Internet. To date, nearly 10,000 students from

over twenty countries have participated in or viewed our “virtual” cultural exchanges.

Here’s where we need YOU! Our most recent broadcast was the best to date, on September 29th, hundreds of students in Boston and New York interacted live with hundreds of students from Cairo, Egypt and Islamabad, Pakistan. Additionally, thousands watched the broadcast on

the Internet.

However, a few days later, disaster struck Pakistan in a form of an earthquake…tens of thousands dead, millions homeless…the Empower Peace students in Boston and New York wanted to do something to help their new friends in Islamabad…in an effort to do so, we are

organizing a LIVE TV/INTERNET TELETHON…entitled, “EMPOWER PEACE, PLEDGING FOR PAKISTAN.”

The TV/Internet Telethon will be broadcast live on Thursday, November 10th at 1-2PM (ET) in Boston on WB56-WLVI-TV and will also be streamed over the Internet (empowerpeace.com). Of additional significance, the broadcast will be transmitted by satellite back to Pakistan enabling viewers there to see the telethon.

We need a lot of schools from around the USA to pledge via e-mail….. would like them to pre-register on the empower peace web site http://www.empowerpeace.com we’d like to read their pledge out loud during the broadcast…so let them know they can compose a sentence or

2 to be read….

Also, if at all possible, we would like for your school to produce a high quality video message to youth in Pakistan we will review for airing…message should be no more than :30 in length….

Go to http://www.empowerpeace.com for more information.

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This morning Coloma High School students are balancing the federal budget! Actually they are participating in Exercise in Hard Choices, a simulation that helps students understand the federal budget process. We’re connected with the University of Akron, Ohio, who is facilitating the videoconference, and a class in Decatur and Midland, Michigan.

The program started with an overview of budgeting, at a student level, state level, and federal level. Additional graphs helped students compare U.S. federal spending with other countries.

Student groups start by setting a budget goal of when (and if) they want to balance the federal budget. Each group is diverse with different viewpoints so that students experience the process of negotiation that occurs at the federal level. Then students make choices on 8 main areas: National Security, Income Support, General Government, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance, Health Insurance Coverage, and Revenues. Students enter their choices into an electronic scorecard that shows the longterm consequences of their decisions.

After they have deliberated and made their choices, the facilitator asked the students to share where their hot topics were and what issues came up as they debated. Students shared stories from people they knew and how the budget decisions affected those stories/experiences. Students clearly were engaged in the discussion and considered the country’s choices. Great experience!

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