From Our Front Page

Making Peace, Restoring Justice Youth Brings Old Forms into a New Era Almost any day’s headlineswill spell out our society’s deeply held but contradictory assertions: Young people are the problem, and young people are the solution. The first belief shows up in news of gang conflicts and school shootings and petty crimes— top-of-the-hour news for most local TV stations. The second typically hides in newspapers’ back pages: stories about the political action, community service, and concern for the future that speak of youth’s passion for fairness and hopes for peace. Yet the very tendency to test limits that tends to get young people in trouble can sometimes provide an opportunity for them to develop their drive for justice and their longing for understanding and respect. Across the country, several remarkable projects are bringing young people into dialogue with each other and their communities, restoring peace to situations rife with conflict, and creating non-adversarial solutions in distressing situations. The national Youth Court movement, featured here in Harlem, New York, helps teenagers practice the skills of the legal system—evaluating evidence, considering multiple perspectives, deliberating thoughtfully—as they create appropriate sentences for peers who have committed offenses. City at Peace, in the nation’s capital, brings together young people from widely different backgrounds to create theatre pieces that express their differences and commonalities. And peacemaking rituals drawn from native traditions are helping make a safe space for mutual communication that can heal even deep-rooted conflicts young people experience both in school and in the community. What lies behind the successes of these initiatives, all of which draw on time-honored ways of promoting connection and responsible action? Does their emphasis on honest self-reflection make them especially appealing to adolescents impatient with the hypocrisies of the system? These stories explore the answers, through conversations with the young people involved and the adult mentors who guide them. They also present some of the practical aspects of their challenges, as a generation comes of age whose members will, more than any before, need the courage and skill to make peace and justice take root in our world. [Read more of this story.]