Dear friends,
When we as adults think about childhood, we like to imagine a happy, carefree and peaceful time in our lives. We think of days full of hope and curiosity, love and wonder. And when we think of our own children, this is the kind of childhood that we would like them to have too: safe, and filled with love and trust.
However, there are places in the world where children know a different kind of childhood; where they grow up with the sound of exploding shells and the sight of tears in their parents' eyes, with the smell of burning houses and the feeling of cold and hunger. There are millions of children in the world who are victims of war, ethnic conflict, civil unrest, and famine. These children do not learn the meaning of love, they do not know what safety is; trust and innocence are lost to them forever.
For many of us war and conflict have become abstract concepts, technical terms heard on the news and read in the headlines. Yet, all over the world there is still a great deal of prejudice, discrimination and intolerance and these powerful feelings often lead to conflict.
They are difficult to root out, penetrating deep into people's hearts and minds and are passed from generation to generation in words of anger and hate. They can take root inside a child and grow within him, emerging later in life and bringing with them their poisonous fruit of destruction and death.
Therefore, we adults should make it our responsibility to ensure that the conditions exist in which all the children of the world can experience the joy of growing up, free from anxiety and fear.
The steps that we need to take must concentrate first of all on education and changing the way people think. Changing how we think about ourselves and others is, however, often the most difficult of tasks. Conflicts between people are usually caused by the fact that they do not understand each other; and they do not understand each other because they do not know each other. We therefore need to provide young people with the opportunity to meet, talk, work and play together, and so allow them to explore their differences and learn about their similarities.
This is why I believe that the Rainbow Bridge Project is so important. It is a small step, but many small steps together can bring about big changes. For some of the young people who will take part in the Rainbow Bridge youth summer camp (16-26 August 2001) this might be one of the most important steps of their lives - the step which allows them to discover who they are and lets them begin to discover others. In fact it will be a small step on their way to becoming better human beings - trusting, happy, and with that special innocence that only the young can know. These children of today will be crossing many bridges in their future lives, meeting new people, making a difference in the world around them. I hope that they will be able to do it with a smile on their faces and hope in their hearts, determined in their turn to create a better world for their children.
I strongly believe that the challenge of organizing the Rainbow Bridge youth camp in Poland next year is a worthy one; it is the challenge of bringing this smile to these young people's faces and putting this hope in their hearts!
J.Kwaśniewska
