Dot Walsh: South Africa Journal, Part 2

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Oct 222011
 

Day Five 10/2   St. George’s Cathedral

St. George’s Cathedral was the parish of Archbishop Desmond Tutu until his recent retirement.  We attended the liturgy in this beautiful cathedral where Tutu would celebrate his 80th birthday two days later.

Rev. Michael Weeder, a priest from Ghana, gave the homily speaking about his negative feelings towards the United States after  9/11. He found that this was his own personal struggle and needed to ask for forgiveness for his first reaction.  Andrea and I spoke to him after the service and found him to be quite an interesting person and from here we walked the labyrinth.

City Tour

Wanting to find out more about this city we took a bus that allows you to get on and off at different locations.  The driver pointed out various places of interest.  District Six was the heart of the city where 60, 000 people lived until the 1968 apartheid mandate bulldozers came and destroyed all the homes.  Now it remains with 85% covered with grass and weeds.  Nothing has been built up until recently and slowly houses are being built. A nearby museum tells the story.  Cape Town is home to people who speak 12 different languages and worship many different religions.  Woodstock is the neighborhood market place with the famous castle nearby that has a history as a place of torture.  The middle balcony of City Hall was the site of Mandela’s first speech after he was freed February 11, 1990.  20,000 people turned out to walk in a parade and hear his famous words promising peace, freedom and democracy for all.  Moving on to Table Mountain you could see the other peaks; Lion’s Head and Signal Hill that sounds the cannon every day at noon that’s is part of a long tradition as a time signal for ships in the bay.  Table Mountains has been nominated as one of the seven wonders of nature in the world.  We traveled along the waterfront with plush apartments and clubs in the Camps Bay area.  Also pointed out the hospital where the first heart transplant was successfully performed by Dr. Christian Barnard.

Global Summit     Days Five – Eight, 10/2 – 10/6

Opening ceremony for GA Summit

The opening message was give by Sonja Kruse who walked around South Africa with R100 note in her pocket and a digital camera.  Her journey was to prove to herself that the spirit of ubuntu indeed existed even in the poorest communities.  She depended on people offering food and a place to spend the night.  She found pleasure in sharing each day with the people she met and ended her journey just short of a year.  An amazing young woman just like Peace Pilgrim.

Andrea LeBlanc, Ela Gandhi, and Dot

The following statement was written by Sarah Ancus who wrote this blog on the Peace and Collaborative Development Network and I thought gave a good idea of the mission of the conference:

The 5th Annual Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace Summit under the theme ‘Ubuntu in Action’, took place at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

Ubuntu, an idea popularized by Archbishop Desmond Tutu through the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is based on a local Southern African conception of humanity, that we are only people through other people. This conceptualization makes it clear that a person does not exist in isolation, but rather forms part of an inter-connected community, which reciprocally impacts upon other communities for both good and bad. The philosophy encourages openness, generosity, compassion and mutual respect.

The summit proceedings certainly embodied this spirit, embracing a willingness to hold open and frank discussions in which all could take part, to learn lessons and grow in a spirit of sharing and sincerity. The Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments for Peace is an activist movement that originally aimed at lobbying for the establishment of Ministries or Departments of Peace within each country’s national government. Today, the Alliance still carries that aim, but has matured and realized the importance of local level infrastructures and participation in community peace-building, now taking a more holistic and multi-dimensional approach which fuses both aspects into their mission and work. It provides resources, information, encouragement, and support for existing and new national campaigns for Ministries and Departments of Peace as well as efforts to establish peace academies and other peace infrastructure elements in government and civil society.

The Summit was addressed on the morning of the 5th of October by Jean-Pierre Mfuni Mwanza. A native of DRC and student of peace at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, he pledged to return to the conflict-ridden Eastern DRC to carry out real peace-building work. Although he initially tried to lobby the national government for a national approach that incorporated a peace process from the centre, upon seeing the government’s reticence and disinterest, he went to work on the ground to establish local peace committees and peace trainings in conflict transformation in local villages affected by the conflict. Jean-Pierre told a moving story of one man who changed his mind about wanting to kill his wife who had been raped and was causing him shame. He said the man had come to see the futility of the violence he desired to inflict and Jean-Pierre said he felt all of his work was made worth-while by seeing the life which he helped save.

Another grassroots-level peacemaker from Virginia in the United States, Gerry Eitner, started her own grass-roots peace organization after becoming involved in the US-based movement for an American Department of Peace. Working along with supporters such as Congressman Kucinich, they made headway in the creation of a Peace Poll for the Pentagon Chapel, which was established in September 2002. Gerry came up with the idea of a Children’s Peace Quilt, through her organization Communities of Peace, which tied together pieces of cloth and materials from children from around the world, all envisioning a peaceful society in which they can grow and flourish. The quilt contains patches from the US, Gambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe, among other countries. It was displayed, standing at over 1/3 mile long, at the US Capital, where over 100,000 people were in attendance. She continues to grow the quilt and work on other local projects to establish local Peace Forums and Inner Peace Programs in ten US communities as well as through international outreach in countries like Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia and Kenya.

The conference spent time working on an understanding of the need for infrastructure and then working on getting to consensus with all conference participants.  Before the closing event the group elected a Board and gave them the assignment of setting up an NGO from Switzerland.  This is a very brief review of a most wonderful and informative conference.  I was especially impressed with the number of young people who are connected to organizations working for peace in different places in the world.  I will mention Oliver (Switzerland) and Luisa (a neurologist from Brazil) who met at Patch Adams’ Gezundheit. and now are committed to their work in peace education and the creation of a different kind of health care system.

Last Day

At the last day of the conference during the lunch break Andrea and I set up the statue and several pictures from the Peace Abbey for conference members to view.  I checked with the people with the computers to make sure they had the power point ready and then went to meet Shaun Johnson and Tammy Lee.  This was the closing ceremony for the conference.

(Read Dot’s remarks at the presentation ceremony here.)

 


 Posted by at 2:22 pm

Dot Walsh: South Africa Journal

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Oct 202011
 

Day One  Leaving 9/28

Left Boston for Atlanta with the Courage of Conscience Award statue being cared for by airline stewards.  At the Atlanta terminal I asked for Mandela’s new book “Conversations with Myself”   At first the clerk said”no” and then ran after me to say if had just come in. Woman beside me from Ireland lived half year in S.Africa and loves it!  From Atlanta to Johnnesburg the statue was watched over once again by airline staff.  Conversations with the stewardess about capital punishment and the Troy Davis execution were interesting. She had visited Cape Town with her mother and found it the most beautiful place in the world. She borrowed the book to read the foreward by Obama and we talked a bit about our president and wondered what happened to him and the promises he made.  We arrived in Johannesburg and were waiting for the plane to Cape Town when a young man we were talking with told us to call Mandela “ta ta Madiba.”    This is what we call him.  Then he touched the statue and gave it a blessing

Day Two  9/29   Arrival in Cape Town

Day Three 9/30   Meeting at the office of  Healing of Memories in Claremont

Father Lapsley founder of the organization was out of the country so we met with Alphonse, a staff member.  The organization was created after apartheid ended and the country moved towards healing and reconciliation.  The funding comes from overseas although in 2010 the government funded 10% of the budget.  Aids is still increasing and poses a huge problem.  Also an influx of refugees from war torn countries ex. Congo, Rwanda, Somalia.  There are no refugee camps so people live with friends and family and go to the townships.  Another problem is crime, with 50 million adults and youth incarcerated. Father Lapsley created the model for the three-day workshop.  Usually 20 people with five facilitators focusing on each person’s story with emphasis on feelings and the power of forgiveness.  Participants are offered follow-up workshops and an ongoing support network.

Afterwards we visited the Mandela Rhodes Foundation to speak with Julia Brown who I had communicated with from the States.  Quite an impressive building although Julia and the director Shaun Johnson were not in.  It looks like Mandela will not be in Cape Town as he has not been feeling well and has even decided not to attend Tutu’s 80th birthday celebration. Whatever happens this will be an amazing opportunity to be in this country and to learn.  The big news is that the Dalai Lama was refused a visa to enter the country for Tutu’s party.

Table Mountain 

The late afternoon was spent at Table Mountain, the huge mountain range that hovers over Cape Town.  It was designated as a National Park by Nelson Mandela in 1996 and is kept in perfect condition.  We walked along observing the different views from  the pathways and stayed until the sun went down catching the last cable car to the bottom. We were told that when the clouds come in and cover the mountain it looks like a table cloth.

 

Day Four  10/1  Robben Island

The ferry left from the waterfront with the sun shining and our spirits high.  Although it was suggested that we bring the statue with us I decided a picture and the new Mandela book would be enough to carry. We went from the ferry to a bus with a guide who gave us the history of the prison.

The Dutch came here in 1650 and brought the first political prisoners from the colonies.  After the Dutch left the British in 1840 turned the island into a leper colony and built a church and a hospital A cemetery still remains from this period.  It closed in 1932 and during WWII the island became an army base.

Then in 1960 with apartheid the first political prisoners were brought here.  They came barefoot, many without underwear and other clothing.  They had to build the prison from the blue slate excavated from the quarries and the living conditions were brutal–prisoners suffered physical, mental and emotional torture. Not a single prisoner escaped alive as the land was too far away to swim to.  The Dutch found a large population of indigenous seals on the island and named Robben Island after the seals.

After being tried for sabotage and given a life sentence Nelson Mandela was brought here In 1983 and spent 18 years of his sentence in isolation.  Prisoners were allowed two visits per year behind a glass window and two letters that were read by officials before giving them out.  The prisoners had to dig holes for toilets and spent days in the lime quarries leaving them with lung disease and damaged eyes.  There was a small yard where the men would play tennis, soccer and chess. The remainder of Mandela’s incarceration was spent in other prisons until his release in 1990 and In 1994 he was elected the first democratic president of South Africa.

We were taken to Mandela’s cell and after the other visitors moved on I asked the guide if he would open the cell so that I could take a picture with the book and photo of the statue.

 Posted by at 5:53 pm

MetroWest Daily News: Natick camp founder has rare ‘Courage’

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Sep 152011
 

By Julia Spitz/Daily News staff

photo of Frank Robinson with his Courage of Conscience Award by Julia Spitz

When a young man followed his college crush from Kentucky to Maine in the summer of 1948, the romance fizzled, but a new love blossomed into something that would change thousands of lives.

He fell in love with the kids at the Pine Tree Camp for Crippled Children, said Frank “Rob” Robinson, who founded Camp Arrowhead in Natick in 1958, and, in 1970, Ashland’s Camp Warren, which became Camp Echo in Goshen and was later incorporated into the 4H Camp Howe.

The Framingham resident’s visionary approach to pairing student volunteers with disabled campers recently put him in the company of the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as a recipient of the Sherborn Peace Abbey’s Courage of Conscience Award.

Lewis Randa, the Peace Abbey’s executive director, “called me about a week before” the award was bestowed last month. “I thought he was kidding. It was overwhelming when he said, ‘We’re going to give it to you.’ ”

The honor is well deserved, say those who know the 83-year-old Robinson.

“His hands are bigger than anything I’ve ever seen” in his ability to reach out to others, said Mike Rourke, who, like Robinson, served as the Natick Recreation Department’s director. “And his heart is bigger than his hands.”

“He’s so worthy, even in the elite company of that award,” said Jim Argir, the Natick native Robinson asked to supervise the Neetega Club for teens more than 50 years ago.

His experience at the Easter Seals camp in Maine was a life-changing experience, said Robinson. The campers “taught me so much,” and the lessons led him to Springfield College for a graduate degree in recreation, and from there, to Natick, with his wife, Pat, whom he met at the Maine camp.

In Natick, “I thought everybody should be exposed to (lessons) the handicapped kids teach you,” and he asked Joe Sheridan, commander of the Amputee Veterans post, if he could use the Lake Cochituate camp when the vets weren’t there.

With Neetega members as volunteers, it became an immediate success, said Robinson. “The people who followed me helped it grow and expand.”

While Natick quickly became Robinson’s adopted hometown, Pat’s sudden death led to changes in 1964. He moved to Winthrop, where his mother-in-law helped care for his young daughters, Nancy and Lynne, and he took over the leadership of the Easter Seals Society in Boston.

When he left Natick, about 1,500 people turned out for the going-away party at the Monticello in Framingham, Argir said.

Singer Connie Francis performed at the party. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” Robinson recalled.

In 1966, he joined the faculty at Northeastern University, where he taught recreation therapy, wrote three books, acquired the nickname “Coach,” and nurtured a new group of volunteers for campers at the Ashland facility owned by Northeastern.

Kids on stretchers would come, but no matter how disabled the camper, the college students found a way to foster a fun experience.

“I still hear from some of them today,” he said of volunteers and campers.

When Northeastern shifted its vision for the Ashland site in 1980, Robinson, campers’ parents and volunteers came up with a plan for a place in Goshen formerly used by the Cerebral Palsy Foundation. “We had kids in wheelchairs living in tents,” but somehow it all worked.

So did the introduction the Camp Echo nurse made in 1981, when she suggested he should meet a friend of hers who was a former nun working in hospice care.

“Everybody thought we would be a great couple because we were both crazy,” said Elinor Robinson. “I was working with the dying and he was working with the disabled.”

They married in 1982 and moved to Framingham, although “Rob” can often be found in the stands rooting for Natick during football season.

“He’s a magnet – a kid magnet, a people magnet,” Linda Frank said of her neighbor who, after retiring, became a Big Brother to two young men and sang bass with the New Sound Assembly Chorus.

“The single most important thing is his contribution to humanity,” said Rourke.

 Posted by at 8:34 pm

Wicked Local Natick: Camp Arrowhead founder honored

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Aug 152011
 

Frank Robinson and his wife Elinor with the Courage of Conscience Award. Photo by Emilee Carter Crowell

By Ian B. Murphy

The Peace Abbey in Sherborn honored Frank Robinson on Tuesday with its Courage of Conscience award, marking his contributions to the community by creating two historic and inclusive summer camps in the area, including Camp Arrowhead in Natick.

Robinson was presented the award at Family Night for Camp Arrowhead at the Elks Club in Natick, allowing the campers, their families, and the staff of the camp he started in 1958 as Natick’s recreation director to participate in the ceremony.

“Most people don’t realize he was the visionary that created that camp, the first camp in the country for disabled children, and it’s been running for 53 years,” said Lewis Randa, executive director of the Peace Abbey. “In presenting him the Courage of Conscience we wanted to make him all the more visible as the creator of that wonderful camp that has helped disabled children for almost six decades. He is the most humble man I’ve ever met, and its a great honor to celebrate his contributions to the community.”

The Peace Abbeys has awarded its Courage of Conscience to many high profile recipients — the most recent winner before Robinson was the Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa — but Randa said a crucial aspect of the award is to recognize local humanitarians who work among us.

“They just do it in their own quiet way, and they just change the world,” Randa said.  “But far too often they don’t get acknowledged, and that’s what the Courage of Conscience award tries to do, is acknowledge them. That’s really the spirit behind the award, just expressing gratitude.

“As far as we’re concerned Frank Robinson doesn’t take a back seat to the archbishop or any of our recipients, in our eyes,” he said. “Frank Robinson deserves to be celebrated, and that’s why we gave him the award.”

Dick Cugini, Natick’s current Recreation and Parks director, said that Robinson’s public/private partnership with the Amputee Veterans Association to start Camp Arrowhead was ahead of its time, a model of success for combining resources to bring programs and services to residents.

“This guy was doing it back in 1958, that’s how far ahead he was,” Cugini said.

Tim Flynn, the current director of Camp Arrowhead, said what Robinson created is so much more than just a program for disabled children: He started something that has taken on a vibrant life of its own, and meshed with the fabric of the community.

“You can create a program, or you can create a mindset,” Flynn said. “A program will run, and that’s fine, but a mindset is something that will live on, just as Camp Arrowhead has for 50 years.”

Robinson said he was “floored” and “honored” when he learned he’d be receiving the award. At the banquet on Tuesday, he said he tried his best to honor the people who really made the camp what it is now.

“It was very flattering, but I tried to give my acceptance speech to who caused this all: It was the kids,” Robinson said. “Everybody got involved, and now they’ve made it a lot better than its humble beginnings, and they’ve made it a lot better.”

“I woke up early (Wednesday) morning to see if it was still there, maybe this was all a dream,” Robinson said. “It’s just mind boggling.”

 Posted by at 8:18 pm

Nelson Mandela Nominated to Receive Courage of Conscience Award

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Jul 172011
 

On July 18, 2011, to celebrate and honor Nelson Mandela on this his 93rd birthday, the Peace Abbey announces that September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows has nominated him to receive the Courage of Conscience Award.

The courage of Conscience Award has been awarded to 153 individuals and organizations working for peace, social justice and nonviolence, including the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Ali, Arun Gandhi, and most recently, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is an organization whose members all lost family members in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and who came together to speak out against further suffering, war, violence and terrorism and to work for justice and solutions to conflict though nonviolence means.

 Posted by at 2:29 pm

Archbishop Desmond Tutu receives the Courage of Conscience Award

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May 302011
 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu received the Courage of Conscience Award at St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, MA on May 23, at one of his final public appearances in the US.

Peace Abbey Chaplain Dot Walsh and St. John’s alumnus Bill Heuer made the presentation after the Archbishop spoke to Saint John’s faculty, students, alumni and guests.

Archbishop Tutu was moved with the Courage of Conscience Award statue, exclaiming, “Oh this is so beautiful!” Dot Walsh explained that the hands represented his hands that prayed for the suffering in the world due to oppression, poverty and war and the dove arising from the hands was the healing and reconciliation he brought to South Africa and to the world.

In his talk, Archbishop Tutu spoke about the connections of all people. He explained the African concept of ubuntu, that we can only achieve our full humanity through recognition of the humanity in all people, remarking to the audience, “You are all Africans.” As he was leaving many people exclaimed, “Ubuntu!”

 Posted by at 9:03 pm

GREENPEACE Awarded Courage of Conscience Award By Peace Abbey

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Feb 192011
 

Excerpt from Presentation by Lewis Randa

Photo By Emma Cassidy

“Over the years, the Courage of Conscience Award has been presented by the Peace Abbey in front of the bronze statue of Gandhi where it permanently stands in the middle of the Pacifist Memorial in Sherborn, MA. We have brought the replica of the statue, the one used during last November’s Anti-Greed demonstration that blocked the entrance to the Goldman Sachs offices in Boston as we acknowledge the extraordinary mission, the extraordinary “Gandhian” mission, of Greenpeace.No other peace or environmental organization has taken the peaceful, direct action, nonviolent strategy that Gandhi used to free India, and so creatively applied it to expose global environmental abuses, anti-nuclear issues, deforestation, overfishing, global warming, coal pollution, the killing of whales and baby seals and all the horrific activities conducted under the banner of free enterprise and capitalism as has Greenpeace.What we are now accustomed to seeing in the news from activist organization that are working to make the world less harsh for its inhabitants, was, in a real sense, the offspring of Greenpeace — Greenpeace paved the way for other organizations to follow, and we are here today to express our gratitude for setting in motion the power of nonviolent resistance in a style and manner that both addresses social issues while elevating altruism to a new level.With the simple act of making salt, Gandhi lead one of the most successful acts of civil disobedience in History – the Salt march. In the spirit of Gandhi, Greenpeace has since its founding in 1971, taught the world how to say no to injustice, cruelty, pollution, greed, hatred and war. Greenpeace took Gandhi’s teachings and, in the spirit of the sixties, moved forward to take risks to get the message of sanity heard through public campaigns that employed creative messages that caught the attention of the media and governments, and, most importantly, the youth of the world. It is a profound honor for me to be making this presentation, for I stand before you today, after some 40 years of peace work to acknowledge that it was my involvement with Greenpeace, decades ago, that opened the flood gates of my own rebellious activism.”Also see Emma Cassidy’s blog about this event.

 

 Posted by at 6:21 am
The Peace Abbey, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, was founded in 1988 to create, maintain, and promote innovative models for social change that reflect the principles of nonviolence that exist within the major faith traditions of the world. A nonprofit organization, the Peace Abbey serves as a model for religious organizations, communities, and individuals seeking non-violent, pacifist pathways to peace and social justice.

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