Our Journey to Smile! Join In!

And who wants to talk to some people in Afghanistan and hear what they're thinking?

Dear Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPVs) and Supporters of Our Journey to Smile:

We are all looking forward to our next conversation together!

If you know of a small group that may be interested in joining this conversation - there is still time. Please have them contact me directly and I will work with them so they can join in. We've had a few cancellations, so there's plenty of room at this time.

For those in Afghanistan, it will be an early Sunday morning (it's 5:00 am on May 9). We here in 'the States' thank you for getting up early so that we can talk together. Your work peace has our full support and we want to spread your message to more people each time we get together.

For those of you in the Americas it will be Saturday Night May 8, 2010. We will start at 8:30 pm for our friends in St. Petersburg, Florida and other east coast locations; it will be 5:30 pm here in Washington and California.

What you'll need at each place:
1) a place for all of your guests to sit to view a screen with videos projected from a (2) computer. 3) a skype account setup and (4) skype software installed on the computer. If you are using a projector for the computer, please test the connections from the computer to the projector and any associated sound system to make sure it all works!

How the evening works
A Setup - Prior to May 8th: Everyone who is participating will receive the list of OJTS videos that will be played during that evening by May 7th. Ten have been selected; we need your suggestions of a few more to complete "Set 2." You may download "Set 2" from the google documents server* anytime @: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B2csq8Ni42MNOGU0MWZjOWQtMDI5NS00OGIxLTh...

(*The remaining, full set, of OurJourneyToSmile videos is always available in "MOV" format for easy use from your computer at: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B2csq8Ni42MNZjhiMDdiMTAtMjcyNi00ZDYzLTh...)

On May 8
1) About 15 minutes prior to the 12:30 am Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) 5/9/10 start, I will call all participants via Skype and confirm with everyone that they are 'hooked-up."
2) At 12:30 am (GMT) the Skype Call will begin, all will confirm attendance and offer greetings.
3) Hakim, Abdulai, Faiz, ... and the rest of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, will introduce the event and will give some background about the Our Journey to Smile history. We'll have some brief discussion between the videos in this "second" set as the AYPVs will talk about their efforts to date. We'll, likely, complete the videos within 80 minutes and have time to talk about the wider journey, the "People's Journey.'
4) The evening will end with an open dialogue between all those participating. Please have the youths in your group give thought ahead of time to the questions and comments they would like to share.

Considerations
We're asking everyone who'd like to participate to invite as many people as possible to join them at home, or a church, or a public space. In addition to raising awareness, this is a "benefit" and donations are being received by the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation explicitly for the US trip being planned for several representatives of the AYPVs for this summer.

Let us all know of any other ideas you have for making this connection meaningful and constructive on the path of peace.

love is how we will ask for peace,
Douglas Mackey

Fellowship of Reconciliation, Olympia
(360) 485-3764 (call anytime)