General outline of the Rainbow Bridge Project
(subtitled 'Unity in Diversity')
The idea of organising meetings of young people to promote tolerant attitudes in the Balkans and other regions of the world was first launched during the conference "Keep Children Smiling in the New Millennium" organised in Warsaw in September 1999 to mark the 10th anniversary of the UN General Assembly's adoption of the Convention of the Rights of the Child. The Conference, organised by Mrs Kwaśniewska's Foundation "Communication without barriers", met with widespread interest, bringing together the queens of Spain, Belgium, Jordan and Sweden, the wives of presidents of 12 countries, and representatives of UNICEF, the Committee on the Rights of the Child as well as many Polish and foreign organisations concerned with children's welfare. There were some 220 international journalists in attendance the Conference.
Rainbow Bridge
During the conference the First Ladies from the 16 different countries had much to say on matters such as ensuring a child's full development and the protection of children's rights. There was a consensus that creating a better future for all children is not only a matter for governments but also for non-governmental organisations, for society as a whole and for each of us individually. In the final document of the Conference intolerance was identified as the chief cause of much of the distress that affects children throughout the world. It was acknowledged that there is an urgent need to create a climate of understanding and co-operation among people of different nations, cultures and religions, particularly in the places where the memory of armed conflicts is still alive. The idea which Mrs Jolanta Kwaśniewska proposed of organising summer meetings of young people from all over the world, recently given the name of the Rainbow Bridge Project, met with wide approval from the Conference participants. A stay at a Rainbow Bridge youth camp will offer an excellent opportunity for young people from various countries to become acquainted with other cultures and so help them to grow up in a climate of respect for different traditions. For the greater their knowledge, the less will be their fear of what is unfamiliar and the more tolerant their attitudes will be. The first Rainbow Bridge youth camp will thus constitute a concrete outcome of the discussions in Warsaw.
Mrs Kwaśniewska first intended to organise the Rainbow Bridge summer camp in a place such as Sarajevo where the memory of armed conflict is still so much alive. She went to Sarajevo in February 2000 to discuss the details of the project with government representatives and with UNICEF, and came back convinced that building tolerance in the Balkans is of paramount importance as it is only through tolerance and mutual understanding that people will learn not to hate others and so will not yield to the temptation of using violence. Moreover, Mrs Kwaśniewska believes that promoting tolerant attitudes among young people all over the world is of crucial importance in our attempts to build a peaceful future.
After careful consideration of the general situation in Sarajevo, Mrs Kwaśniewska decided to organise the first Rainbow Bridge youth camp in Poland in the summer 2001 (the exact dates are: 16-26 August 2001) to act as a model for subsequent camps which might then take place in other countries of the world.
As regards next year's Rainbow Bridge youth camp in Poland, it is planned that an international group of some 36 - 40 young people between the ages of 15 and 17, coming largely from the countries whose First Ladies participated in the September conference in Poland, will meet with young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yugoslavia for a 10-day period (all together about 80 young people). The young people, by performing various tasks together will implement the programme of the Project which will include educational and psychological elements as well as work, creative activities, sports and entertainment. The overarching theme of the entire programme will be tolerance (What does tolerance mean? Are there any limits to tolerance?, etc) but the principal emphasis will be on mutual acquaintance and communication, things which favour the shaping of tolerant attitudes. An important element of the programme will be to search for that which links rather than divides. Mrs Kwaśniewska is also keen that Nobel Peace Prize winners and other personalities who have been instrumental in the solution of conflicts by peaceful means should make appearances at the camp.
December 2000
