Peace Playground Project

The Peace Playground Project was founded by six New York City teenagers with the idea of restoring play spaces for children where war has robbed them of this basic human need and right. As part of International Bridges, a NYC Board of Education program to foster international human rights activities in city schools, the mission of the PPP is also to create opportunities for international student exchange and leadership development around issues of human rights.

Our first collaboration is with students in Sarajevo from the First Bosniac High School, Edhem Mulabdic middle school, and youth from a housing project alongside the Centar Za Mlade, a community center on whose grounds the playground will be built. After the events of 9/11 here in New York, we also feel there is much to learn from the Bosnian students who are in the midst of learning how to live again in harmony in a historically multicultural city.

Because we believe students thrive in situations in which they have an impact on their environment, our project is structured to maximize student involvement and exchange as we address all aspects of the project including community development, fund raising, design, and site preparation. The playground is the vehicle for development of community relationships and an artistic statement about the meaning and importance of play in children’s lives and a community’s future. Under NYU Associate Professor Jan Cohen-Cruz guidance, we developed a shared story telling aspect to the project around the theme of play that we hope to expand to a theater piece for educational and fundraising purposes.This component, in collaboration with NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Unity High School and PPP youth, will begin in fall 2002.

Our work thus far

In the initial stages, the focus of the core project committee here has been to build community support and awareness about the project. We have received grants and support from the Independence Community Bank Foundation, Youth in Action, the Prospect Park Alliance, Bone and Levine Architects, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and other local businesses, faith, and community organizations. We were able to bring over two students and a town planner from Sarajevo last spring to lay the groundwork for the project. The Bosnian students also visited several New York City schools to share their experiences of rebuilding relationships after a war. Out of this outreach effort, an outstanding architect Michael Fishman, Vice President for Urban Design from the Sam Schwartz Company became involved and agreed to donate his time to facilitate the creation of a space that represents the vision of the youth.

Thanks to the interest and efforts of town officials and school principals in Sarajevo, we found a wonderful space for the playground on the grounds of the Centar Za Mlade. This past March our committee went to Sarajevo for a week of team building,story gathering, and design development. We worked with high school and middle school students, from the old part of town, and young people from the housing project in New Sarajevo where the youth center was built about a year ago.

The community center, a jewel in the midst of a high rise housing project, is surrounded with undeveloped open space. It was built largely through the will of Lyle Morris from California who came to Bosnia after the war to "help." Sponsored by the United Methodist Global Ministries, he raised over a million dollars. The housing project is a new community of displaced people from other parts of Bosnia without much relationship to the community center or the city. The open space surrounding the center is ripe for a community project and our premise of involving kids in the design and building of the playground was met with enthusiasm by the director of the Youth House, the Mayors of New and Old Sarajevo, and the Housing Project President. By working with the various municipal constituents, Alan Schulman, Director of International Bridges was able to have the land donated to our project.

Our week culminated in a design charette that incorporated ideas from our story circles about play before the war, during the war and after the war, as well as theatre workshops about visions of community. We began at 10 in the morning talking about play spaces, examining the space outside, brainstorming about how to connect the youth center, the land and the housing project. By three in the afternoon, Michael Fishman who had traveled from New York to Sarajevo with us, gave the youth construction materials and said now make a model and indeed by 4:30 there was a model. In the process the space had morphed into a multigenerational play space that was thoughtful of all the constituents who could benefit from the space. It was a remarkable process. We created a board with a student advisory component that includes Bosnian youth from several different parts of town and social strata.

The whole experience was really magical, particularly to watch the Bosnian kids own the project. Many of the teens feel like they lost their childhood hiding in basements during the three and half years of war. As a young woman Leila, who hosted one of our students, said when we asked her what she really thought about the project, "At first I thought a playground, that's nice but what does it have to do with me, I am too old. But through all this talk about play, I realized I could to do something for the next generation. We need to have hope if we are going to make it."

Next steps

Our immediate needs are to raise an estimated $25,000 to pay for permits, stamps, surveys (all of which has been negotiated to come to us at cost) and hire a local engineer to work with Lyle Morris who has generously agreed to be our project manager. Then a design and budget can be finalized for the playground.

Lyle is taking a group of students from California to Sarajevo this summer. They will help to develop the student advisory committee and start a newsletter to keep all the project members in communication.

We are also in the midst of identifying Our immediate needs are to raise an estimated $25,000 to pay for permits, stamps, surveys (all of which has been negotiated to come to us at cost) and hire a local engineer to work with Lyle Morris who has generously agreed to be our project manager. Then a design and budget can be finalized for the playground.

Lyle is taking a group of students from California to Sarajevo this summer. They will help to develop the student advisory committee and start a newsletter to keep all the project members in communication.

We are also in the midst of identifying corporate and philanthropic sponsors for the project. You can help us not only by contributing money but also by sharing your ideas and contacts.
or the project. You can help us not only by contributing money but also by sharing your ideas and contacts.

The International Bridges Peace Playground Project is part of the National Academy of Education. It is also sponsored by the Alternative High School Division of the New York City Board of Education and the International Network of Productive Schools, an international body representing alternative schools all over the world. As part of the NAE, donations to the Peace Playground Project are tax –deductible.

For more information regarding the project and ways you can help please contact Kathy Berliner by phone (718) 499-7718 or by sending an e-mail to BerlinerK@aol.com

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