I attended a charity event last night that was co-hosted by my dear friend Patti for a non-profit group called BookEnds, a Los Angeles based organization that engages children in book drives for less fortunate kids in the community. A sizable team of volunteers such as Patti had poured untold hours into organizing this event for the past two months. It was held at the Beverly Hills Country Club, and there was a very large crowd of about 100 people in attendance, perhaps more, for a cocktail mixer followed by dinner, a Scrabble contest and a silent auction.
Many of the items at the auction were going for sums approaching $1,000. At the end of the evening, as I sat nibbling dessert and chatting with a very nice lady dripping with expensive jewelry, I watched her casually sign off an itemized voucher on her credit card for more than 10 items for which she had placed the highest bid.
Earlier in the day, I'd had an extended Skype call with Alex of Rodando Cine discussing the editing of his project in Buenos Aires and some upcoming Pan American Dreams journal contributions from his partner Ine and him. Alex and Ine had traveled from Argentina to Mexico for 10 months in 2008 showing movies in remote villages. I mentioned to Alex the lasting impression that their visit to Chuqui Chuqui, Bolivia had made upon me, and he shared more details from their projection there last March, almost a year ago.
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He described how emotional this day had been for both Ine and him and for the children of Chuqui Chuqui. He noted how profoundly moving it was to see these children, 294 of them, in an animated state of amazement. Never having seen a moving image, they thought the movie was some kind of magic trick, kept going up to touch the wall that was being used as a screen to find the source of this incredible flickering display of light and sound and imagery. (See The niños of Chuqui Chuqui.)
These vivid impressions were very much on my mind tonight as I watched more than a dozen very articulate children from upper middle class households, all wearing yellow BookEnds T-shirts, get up in front of the audience to describe the projects they were working on for the organization. One after another, they spoke animatedly about their experiences helping with book drives, sorting the books and often helping deliver them to schools and libraries less fortunate than their own. They were already practiced public speakers.
The invitations and supporting literature for this event were bristling with corporate logos for the various sponsors, from Seimens to Nestle to Symantec.
While I have no quarrel with BookEnds, I couldn't help wondering if perhaps they, and many other similar charities, might be capable of thinking a bit more outside the box about how to challenge the children in their program to dig deeper and aim higher, while also thinking about new ways to deploy their considerable resources.
Watching the BookEnds children talk about their activities, I was very impressed with their savvy and resourcefulness. My suspicion is that they can do much more than they are challenged to do with book drives. These kids, and their middle class generational cohort in the U.S., all have access to computers and the internet. They know how to organize, understand logistics, have a grasp of communications techniques. Why not give them, all of them, not just BookEnds kids, some godawful monster challenge and see if they are up to it?
In many so called primitive societies, children went through fearsome rituals of initiation into adulthood at a very early age. By the time they were 10 or 12, their tribes or villages needed them, indeed, they were dependent for their very survival upon their active involvement in the group's vital work, e.g., hunting, warfare, gathering food, crucial domestic duties, etc. What makes us think it is any different now? Why wouldn't we want our kids to be as tough and resourceful and resilient as possible? How else are they going to survive in the world we are handing on to them, a world too often beset by war, famine, ecological crises and fragile financial underpinnings.
Of course I am thinking of Chuqui Chuqui and Bolivia in general, with its staggering 60% poverty rate. The children of Chuqui Chuqui surely need new books, basic school supplies, and perhaps even some new clothes or more food to eat. We could find similar situations in most of the nations of America.
Why not challenge the very intelligent and skilled young people such as those I saw tonight to work cooperatively, as equals, with the children of Chuqui Chuqui to eradicate poverty there in three months? Or some similarly daunting challenge in any of dozens of locations in America. Yes, it is impossible, but we would probably be surprised by what these kids, on both sides, can do if we simply give them an impossible challenge and a guided introduction to adult responsibilities.
