Students Build a Peace Village Shantytown on UC s Campus to Raise Awareness about Hunger

As many as 200 people are expected to create a shantytown village on campus at the University of Cincinnati to raise awareness about the growing hunger problem in Cincinnati as well as to examine what can be done to address the issue. Their participation in this weekend Peace Village begins as participants sign in at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 29. That afternoon, they’ll set up their cardboard box houses that they’ll sleep in overnight on UC’s Campus Green. (Rain location: Armory Fieldhouse).

The UC Peace Village, supported by UC’s Just Community initiative to build a caring community by practicing civility and promoting justice, will feature opening remarks by Just Community Co-chair Mitchel D. Livingston, UC Vice President for Student Affairs and Services. The shantytown Peace Village includes representatives from UC Honors Scholars; the UC Center for Community Engagement; UC students representing Daniels, Calhoun, Siddall, Turner, Schneider and Campus Recreation Center residence halls; students from Wright State University (with 10 teams of students); Wilmington College; and Fairfield High School.

Peace Village organizer Steve Sunderland, a UC professor in the Division of Educational Studies and Leadership in the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services, says the primary goals of the conference are to:

• Educate people about the state of hunger in Cincinnati
• Discuss efforts to reduce hunger
• Examine how to help strengthen local, state and federal programs to reduce hunger
• Demonstrate the connection between national and international hunger issues

“This will be the first regional student conference on peace and hunger, and it will be the first conference aimed at reducing hunger through youth leadership,” says Sunderland.

Each team of seven people who registered for the event is paying a $25 registration fee, plus bringing a case of food to donate to the FreeStore Foodbank in Over-the-Rhine. The FreeStore reports that agencies served by the FreeStore provide food for an estimated 161,000 people per year. “If we continue to have this growing hunger problem, the possibility of a neighborhood peace or a family peace or a community peace is just not going to be possible,” says Sunderland.
 
“Although the shantytown provides a powerful learning experience, our goal with this conference is hunger education,” adds Jonathon Price, student president of the Peace Village who’s a UC sophomore voice performance major and graduate of North Kansas City High School in Missouri.

After Saturday check-in, the groups will depart campus to assist local service agencies in Over-the-Rhine before returning to campus to set up the shantytown and attend their conference in the Peace Village of cardboard boxes.  Here is the full schedule:

Saturday, April 29

10 a.m.-noon – Check-in, welcome, and orientation, Campus Green. Participants will bring their own sandwich for lunch

Noon-4:30 p.m. – Depart campus to assist service agencies in Over-the-Rhine.

4:30-5 p.m. – Return to campus

5-6 p.m. -- The Third World Dinner at 5 p.m. will raise consciousness about food shortages around the world.

6-7 p.m. -- Set up Shantytown

7-9:45 p.m. – Seminars by the FreeStore Foodbank; Bread for the World; UC Honors Scholars on their service-related spring break trip to areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina; UC Center for Community Engagement; and Nurani Dunia Foundation (Compassion to the World), an organization Sunderland accompanied on a two-week trip to Indonesia following the tsunami that devastated the region.

10-11 p.m. -- Community activity on Campus Green

11 p.m. – Retire to cardboard houses to sleep in shantytown

Sunday, April 30

8-9 a.m. – Breakfast

9:30-10:30 a.m. – Reflections on the conference using Posters 4 Peace as an engine to promote discussion. Sunderland, a grief counselor, first conceptualized the Posters 4 Peace campaign to foster dialogue and healing from the 2001 Cincinnati riots. Those peace posters were featured in a 2001 award-winning exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center, the Fitton Center for the Creative Arts in Hamilton, the Cincinnati Public Library, the Cincinnati Office of the National Association of Community and Justice, and in television documentaries.

10:30-11:30 a.m. – Teams devise their own strategies to reduce hunger

11:30-Noon – Closing remarks

The Peace Village conference is co-chaired by Keara Mullen of the Center for Peace Education, a private educational organization in Cincinnati, as well as Jonathan Price, UC student president of the Peace Village, and Jeanne Smith, director of the UC Wesley Foundation United Methodist Student Center.