An Electronic "Journalino" for Cultural Dialogue, Understanding and Peace
Holding Hands is an online magazine that represent an important opportunity for cultural integration, comprehension of the diversity and above all, an instrument for peace building through internet that is naturally a meeting place for youngsters!!!
Mechanism
Holding Hands have a leading teacher/animator in each of the schools. These teachers form the "editorial board," working together to select the content of the monthly "journalino" and encouraging and supporting the children from their classes to write articles. There is a chief-editor to secure an overall checking of the content of every monthly edition to draw attention to material or comments potentially offensive to any one of the peoples involved.
Holding Hands is published in English as a common language but its content is part of a multi-lingual process. It was selected from short articles written in local language by the pupils of the six participating schools. The purpose is to facilitate the integration of the writing into the normal class activity. Then the two best articles would be selected by the teacher for translation into English and consequent publication in Holding Hands. Simultaneously, to secure the widest dialogue between cultures, each of the articles (in English) originated in the two schools from one country are translated into the local language of the two other countries (for instance, articles in arabic originating in Palestine are translated into English by the Palestinian schools, and then they are translated from English into Italian and Hebrew by the Italian and Israeli schools respectively).
The multi-lingual aspect of the Holding Hands journal imposes the need for access to English skills on the part of the participating schools. To prevent an unmanageable proliferation of translation work, the articles should be kept short, for instance, maximum 200 words, and the is divided in an equitable way. Thus, every school translate the same amount of articles, that is, no more than two articles from local language into English (their own selected articles), and no more than four articles from English into local language (the articles from one school per each of the two "dialoguing" countries). The initial monthly publication of Holding Hands is thought to provide good time to complete the process of writing, translation and publication.
The number of schools and countries contributing to the journal can grow organically and modularly, with the same concept of six schools replicated as "production" cells. If such growth were to be stimulated then the "joint production" of articles in local language by cells in the same country would provide the content for the production of local Holding Hands electronic journals. Indeed, once we start the process, the imagination is the limit.
Contacts
Drs. Silvia Celani
Holding Hands Project Manager
Diego Giacani
Webmaster
Phone Number: +39 06 42 014 109
Fax: +39 06 42 000 442
26/May/2006
