Using Technology for Peace
an article by Joanne Tawfilis

Heads on Fire is a Non Profit Organization that promotes technoliteracy and is based in San Diego, California. This past week, several young people joined Xavier Leonard, founder of the organization, and conducted Service Learning Projects at the Integrationshaus and Traiskirchen Refugee Center in and near Vienna, Austria.

The group helps young people produce electronic storybooks utilizing state of the art technology that seems to be available in most locations regardless of the environmental situation. What makes Heads on Fire so unique is that the staff members are also either displaced, homeless or formerly homeless, or refugees themselves.

Stories, photos, music and multimedium technology really helped bridge all barriers during their workshops. The refugees from Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries could see, through producing their stories, that they were not alone with their problems.

The electronic storybooks young people create afford them an opportunity to create a hands on project, when at times, being displaced often makes them feel hopeless. Their stories are then prepared for an on line magazine and present glimpses of the lives impacted by disastrous humanitarian situations. Some of the stories portrayed involved the impact of HIV/Aids in Ethiopia, the efforts to revive a disappearing Yaqui Indian culture, and everyday survival efforts in Refugee Collective Centers.

Xavier and his ever-changing staff continue to bring real life problems to the surface by the people who are experiencing them. Their stories truly demonstrate the importance of the International Decade for a Culture of Peace by expressing the need for remedies to real problems. In other words, getting these stories "in our faces"!

The people working Heads on Fire are true peacemakers and they will not care if their name is in print or on an engraved plaque or fancy certificate. You can see their work at www.headsonfire.org

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Electronic storybooks
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