The KIDS-91 Newsletter A Global Dialog for Children 10-15 Years Issue number 3, Nov 11 1991 Art by Emily Ellinger (13), USA

1. "I can sponsor a child..."

The goal of KIDS-92 is to get as many 10-to-15-year-old children as possible involved in a GLOBAL dialog continuing until May 19th 1992. All of them begin by responding to these questions: 1) Who am I? 2) What do I want to be when I grow up? 3) How do I want the world to be better when I grow up? 4) What can I do now to make this happen?
Here are some recent responses:

>From Nairobi (Kenya):

1. I am a boy called Thimothy Agape Wandera.
2. When I grow up I would like to be an theologian.
3. When I grow up I would like to spread the word of God and make a peaceful world. I would also like to live in a better world with a clean environment. I would like the world to be better by trying to stop the usage of explosives, for eksample atomic and nuclear bombs.
4. Currently I can just be able to try and pray and hope that the world will stop the use of these bombs.

>From Denmark:

Hi kids!
1) I'm Tobias Berg Meyer. I'm a boy twelve years old and I go in the sixth' class. I live in Denmark near Copenhagen. In my spare time I go in a theatre youth club called Gawenda, which the politicians are going to close, because of economical cutdowns.
2) When I grow up, I want to be a sound and light technician on a theatre.
3) Stop felling the rainforrest and don't kill the whales. Stop the war.
4) Our class have bought a piece of the rainforrest to stop the felling. If you have many friends all over the world, you maybe can avoid war.

>From West Chester, Ohio (USA):

1. My name is Melissa Carpenter. I live in West Chester, Ohio which is near Cincinnati. I am 12 years old. I have two cats, one dog, and several tropical fish. I like to write stories about my old boyfriend, Brian. I am in the 7th grade at Hopewell Junior School. I am running for our 7th grade class president. The election is on Wednesday, Sept. 25.
2. I would like to be an elementary school teacher when I grow up. My grandmother, grandfather, aunt, and great-grandmother are all teachers.
3. When I grow up, I would like there to be less poverty in the world.
4. I can help to make a difference by sponsoring a child. I can also help by learning as much as I can about other cultures, so that I can understand their needs. I would like to receive e- mail from all over the world. I can't wait to get key-pals.

2. "Hi, how are you doing?"

When the kids have sent in their responses to the four questions, they're invited to participate in the KIDCAFE discussions.
Most of the messages in KIDCAFE are in English, but some children write in German, Italian, Spanish and French. KIDCAFE is where kids make friends. They often start with a message like the one from Jake dated November 9:

Hi, this is Jake. How are you doing? I am from Homer City, Pennsylvania (that's in the United States). I live in a yellow house.
I'm ten years old, and in that yellow house I really don't have that much fun. I would really like to get some postcards from kids in other coutries, especially Isreal and I would like them to tell me what it was like when Saddam was shooting SCUD missles at them...
I'm a paperboy and I like yogurt. And I know a lot about the war in the gulf and on Saturdays the papers I deliver are really big. I promise to write you back a letter or a postcard if you send one to me!
Please respond back to me! Thanks! Jake (Email address: CDBSDUC@grove.iup.edu)

We hope that KIDCAFE will help kids build a global personal network like the one Sarah Christine Ramage has in place. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

Wed, 30 Oct 1991.
To : Ingrid and Renata Tomics in Kosice, Czecho-Slovakia
I have printed the address you asked me to send a postcard to and I will send one. I live in Toronto Canada and I am very interested in Mentally handicapped children as well as mentally ill children. Thanks for your concerns and let me know if there is anything else I can do. I live in a house and go to John English school which is 2 blocks from my home. I have one little sister at home and two big sisters that live on their own and two big brothers that live on their own. Please write me. Sarah (Email address: JBIERMA@UTOROISE.BITNET)

3. "Tools that kill"

The children are also invited to get involved in KIDS-ACT. Since the last issue of this newsletter, they have been discussing drug abuse, segregation, pollution, acid rain, crime and punishment, children's rights, and GUN CONTROL.
In one message, Justin Clifton from Cincinnati (USA) told the group that "everyone in cincinnati in my family has a gun and people on my street have guns, one family in my street accidentally killed a three year old boy.."
From Aquila Tyndall near the Santa Ynez River in California (USA) came the following thoughtful reaction:

Sat, 2 Nov 1991

I feel the need to use tools that kill is part of what makes our time so unhappy and full of war - We all need to help each other learn the ways peaceful peoples and cultures have used to resolve disagreement - In my homeschool class we study the Chacoan culture in North America and the Minoan culture in Crete as examples of times when war and weapons were not the main artifacts left for future time -It takes a lot of talking though - to begin to understand how to make a culture possible without the need to protect yourself from the 'other' We spent the last couple of months studying the "Other" as a way to begin understanding how people create 'others' outside 'their' group who they inevitably need to 'protect' them selves from and up springs conflict and war - I don't really talk about it as well as my teachers but the discussion could continue with us -

               What does it mean to creat "Others"
                  outside your group/tribe/culture?
                   How do we begin helping one another
                    to recognize that we are a world of
                     one people and guns only mean a need
                      to do violence?

so much more but let's continue the talk (Email address: 3000rain%ucsbuxa@HUB.UCSB.EDU)

4. KIDS-92 progress report

Instructor magazine (USA, circulation 300,000) published an article about KIDLINK in its October issue, and this has generated dozens of inquiries from U.S. schools interested in participating. A long article about the project was published on the front page of the international newsletter "The Matrix" (issue #5).
KIDLINK also had front page mention in The APICNET Newsletter Vol 2 (Japan), and was presented in articles in the Hokkaido Shinbun newspaper (Japan) and in "The Network", which is the quarterly newsletter of TWIN (Third World Information Network).
An article about KIDS-91 was printed in the Norwegian magazine "Verk og Virke" (4/91, p.36), and it had another mention in the Compuserve Magazine, USA (September, p.15).
A topic for KIDS-92 has been started under the Education SIG on Unison (USA). On The Well (USA), type <g kidlink> or just <g kids> to get to the KIDS-92 area. It's also being fed as news to the Learning Link educational network in the US.
The children in Bologna (Italia) are now receiving KIDCAFE through a local mail exploder. The KIDLINK area on TriState Online in Cincinnati (USA) became publicly available in September. Teachers on The Iris On-Line Network were connected to the KIDS- 92 list through MetaNet (USA). UNIBASE in Regina Saskatchewan (Canada) is now carrying the KIDS-92 discussions.
Odd de Presno gave the keynote speech about KIDLINK at the Networking Forum '91 in Hokkaido, Japan, and met with a great group of 12 year old children at Asahi-cyo elementary school in Tokyo (Nobuo Hasumi's students). Dan Wheeler gave a talk about KIDLINK for a Children's International Summer Villages Convention.
We have a new discussion forum called KIDPLAN2, a "conference room" where task forces can meet to discuss ad hoc topics. For example, the discussions about the Map of KidLink started there (see list of new files below). When the map was almost ready for publication, it was presented to KIDPLAN, which is a larger group. After a final round of feedback in KIDPLAN, it finally made its way to KIDS-92 and the Archives.
In September, the KIDLINK coordinators discovered the power of networking when 'selling the project' to teachers and schools. Demonstrations and seminars for teachers are now increasingly being preannounced through KIDS-92, so that others can send electronic greetings to the participants on the day of the events.
KIDS-91 was closed down and is not accepting subscriptions anymore. All files - including the message log files - are still available, though. You can search the message log files using standard LISTSERV commands and retrieve files using the GET command. (Send the command "GET KIDS-91 TIPS" to the LISTSERV for more information.)

5. Sponsors

Digital Equipment Corp sponsored the project "Digital Kidlink-91" in New Zealand in August. And SciLink, the Toronto-based educational network on which the project originated, continues to cover the printing and mailing costs involved with responding to inquiries from North American teachers.

6. New Documents and Files

The following new files are available by email from the KIDS-92 archives:

POLICIES		The KIDLINK Statement of Purpose and some key policies.
REPORT		Practical tips from around the world about how to use KIDS-92 in the Classroom.
KIDMAP		Mark Hunnibell's impressive Map of KIDLINK, an introduction to how our messages travel the world.
BSPEECH		Paper about KIDLINK presented by Mike Burleigh to the British Computer Society in London.
MATRIX		Article about KIDLINK published in The Matrix
HOKKAIDO		Documentation of Odd de Presno's keynote speech about KIDLINK at Networking Forum '92 in Hokkaido, Japan. (A translation into kanji is available through DOSIN-net and STS(pc-van) in Japan.)
RATING		Opinions about KIDLINK from the students in class 6A at Knarvik elementary school in Norway.
NEWS2-92		Newsletter #2
NEWS292N		Newsletter #2 in Norwegian
ART002		Computer Art from Jeremy Naylor, New Zealand
GIVE		Tips for those who have problems with the GET command, and for those who want to send files to others.

KIDLINK is impartial as to what methods are being used to solve the problems of the world today, and does not promote specific solutions to problems or political points-of-view.
On the other hand, KIDLINK may make material/information about world problems and projects to solve these problems available for local organizers of the KIDLINK projects as files in the KIDS-92 archives. Here are some files that have been made available recently:

 
    LESSONS   Lesson Plans on World Hunger
    EDUCOM    EDUCOM 91 Announcement
    MINISAGA  Project  Invitation from  CHATBACK (United Kingdom)
    UNCED     UN Conference on Environment and Development
    GROCERY   Global Grocery List project
    VUKOVAR   Cry for  help on behalf of  the children in Croatia
    CHILD     Announcement of the Children's Rights List
 

To get a list of all available files in the KIDS-92 archives, send a message to LISTSERV@vm1.nodak.edu . In the TEXT of your message, write the command:

INDEX KIDS-92

The resulting file will also give you a short explanation about how to retrieve individual files from our archives. If you have problems downloading files, please email Odd de Presno.

7. About KIDS-92

In addition to the young participants' responses to the four questions (see the beginning of this newsletter), we would like them to illustrate their future vision, for example in a drawing, a video tape, or something else.
On May 18th and 19th, 1992, the children will be invited to "chat" with each other in a global electronic dialog. Exhibitions of selected parts of the responses will be sent back to the world for the children to see and enjoy.
Our global online discussion forums, KIDS-92, KIDPLAN, and KIDPLAN2, are meeting places for teachers, parents and other persons involved with the KIDS-92 project.
The project operates the following forums for the children themselves:

RESPONSE		where the children send their personal introductions (their responses to the four introductory questions)
KIDCAFE		where they can 'talk' about anything they like
KIDS-ACT		where they can discuss 'What we can do NOW to make the world a better place to live'.

To join KIDS-92 through Internet/BITNET, send the command SUB KIDS-92 Yourname to LISTSERV@vm1.NoDak.EDU (for example: SUB KIDS-92 Ole Olsen). The command should be in the BODY of the text. The discussion forums are also available through several conferencing system and mail exploders around the world. Write us for more information.
All discussion forums are open for everybody, but only kids between 10 - 15 may write messages in KIDCAFE and KIDS-ACT.
The KIDS-92 newsletter is an information bulletin for teachers, participants, sponsors, mediators, promoters, and others. Suggestions and contributions are invited. But please don't wait until the next issue to plan activities in your community! And be sure to write us if you want to get on the mailing list for KIDS- 92!! Onward!

If you want to help out with KIDS-92, or participate, contact the editor, or one of the following persons:

You can also write to KIDS-92, 4815 Saltrod, Norway or just sign up ...