Cornered human Rights and Arts Festival  

19th-25th November 2007

Fishbowl Youth is organising and implementing a youth festival centred on the One World Week theme: ‘Justice and Power’, and Youth Health / Aids Awareness.

One World Week (OWW) is an international initiative that exists to provide space for people from diverse backgrounds to come together to learn about global justice, to spread that learning and to use it to challenge inequality, discrimination and degradation, locally and globally.

Last year during this week Fishbowl Youth worked with the theme of HIV/AIDS and created a 3D sculpture which looked at the stigma related to HIV/AIDS. This sculpture was then presented at the National Youth Council Ireland (NYCI) One World Week Central Action Day in Dublin.

This year with the help of five European volunteers, Fishbowl organised the “Cornered” Human Rights and Arts Festival in Scariff.

The aim was to facilitate youth to think and work together on the theme of Human Rights and this years OWW theme of Power and Justice. Over a period of six weeks they have given workshops at Youth Reach, The Alfa Project, Mercy College Woodford, EMC Youth Club Scariff, and Scariff Community College, the results were displayed during the festival.

There were several exhibitions around the Scariff, from the 19th till the 25th November:

· Young local artists exhibited their work at Fishbowl Youth club and the Market House

· Photos by Sophie Breuker, taken in South Africa and Turkey were exhibited in main street shop windows

· Brian and Joe’s Coffee Shop hosted Katie Moore’s photos of Nigeria.

· At Youth Reach you could come face to face with a thought-provoking collection of photos of Israel and Palestine.

· Philip Daly’s inspiring pictures of “Burma Action Ireland” were exhibited at the new Scariff Public Library.

Although the festival was youth-driven, the programme still offered interest and excitement to people of all ages. Anyone interested could try their talent at the drumming workshops, get information about the work of Amnesty International, hear local musicians play, discover the human rights through the living statues of Fishbowl Youth.

During the weekend you could learn everything about Fair Trade, and you could join the Mayfield Art group’s two parts workshops or the ‘Breaking through the Wall’ workshop in Youth Reach.

The festival worked with several art forms, from theatre to photography, and from music to movies. There were be a number of short movies, relating to the issue of Human Rights, Ruaille-Buaille dance night and The Acoustic Music evening in a café style setting.

Not forgetting the younger ones, on Sunday the ALFA Project’s students will presented a puppet-show of “Vasilissa the beautiful”.

Everyone was welcomed to come to the Grand Opening with music, poetry and refreshments at the new Public Library on the Thursday22nd November, 6 pm together with Timmy Dooley our local TD and Eleanor Feeley, Youth Theatre Officer.

The project was entirely organised by volunteers, both Irish and from abroad. We are a small youth led organisation, with a lot of enthusiasm and also many years of experience in organising events, we organise seminars, exchanges, work camps and training courses on a regular basis.

There were four Fishbowl people carrying the project:

Firstly Joske Slabbers and Sophie Breuker. Joske and Sophie are the founder members of Fishbowl Youth and have been active members since it was founded in 2002.
After they finished their Leaving Cert, they both went on a voluntary placement, Joske in a film centre in Slovenia and Sophie in a cultural youth centre in Turkey and in a social centre in South Africa. During these placements they gained many skills, which they are now implementing in this project.

Bonnie Boyle has been the motivating force behind Fishbowl Youth since it started, Fishbowl is a youth-led youth organisation, but Bonnie has always been the binding force.
She studied anthropology and sociology in college, and she is an outreach worker for Clare Youth Service.

Mieke Neven McMahon, joined Fishbowl Youth in its second year and has since taken on the International side of the organisation. She has been an administrator for a small school project and has experience in account management for small companies. She is a trained teacher, and a free lance facilitator for Léargas, NYCI – National Youth Development Education Programme, and Glencree – centre for Peace and reconciliation.

We are very thankful for the help of our five European Volunteers:

Metod, from Slovenia; Patricia, from Portugal; Rada, From Slovenia; Sophia, from Germany and Vanda from Hungary….
without your help this project would not have been possible!
!!!!!You did a great job!!!!