“Clap once if you hear my voice; clap ten times if you hear my voice!” Nate Biggs grinned as a group of approximately 75 youth and adults clapped in unison at the start of the Six Billion Paths to Peace Workshop on March 26, 2010 during the recent National Service-Learning Conference in San Jose, CA. The National Service-Learning Conference (NSLC) is organized by National Youth Leadership Council (www.nylc.org) and it is the largest gathering of youth and practitioners involved in service-learning, drawing approximately 2,000 to 2,500 attendees from across the United States and many other countries each year. Once again, Shinnyo-en Foundation was one of the lead sponsors and this year’s host sponsor for the NSLC. This clapping to make an effective transition from lively and active involvement of the participants to quiet listening of the presenters was just one of several best practices Biggs, a San Ramon, CA Youth-to-Youth college leader, shared with workshop participants. As the participants paid a keen attention to him, Biggs introduced Youth-to-Youth and describedits successful collaboration with the Shinnyo-en Foundation.

Shinnyo-en Foundation staff Ineko Tsuchida and Abby Nathanson joined forces with Biggs as well as Traci Cross, a Youth-to-Youth coordinator in Castro Valley, to present the practical ways in which Six Billion Paths to Peace can be implemented in an existing program for little to no funding. Youth-to-Youth (www.youthtoyouth.net), an international drug prevention program that focuses on building self esteem and support for young people in middle and high school, first partnered with the Shinnyo-en Foundation in 2009. The Shinnyo-en Foundation provided a small amount of funding and in-kind donations of Six Billion Paths to Peace t-shirts to San Ramon, Castro Valley, Merced, Carmel and El Dorado Northern California Youth-to-Youth chapters to incorporate the Six Billion Paths to Peace message in their existing work.

During the workshop, Biggs and Cross discussed the history of Youth-to-Youth and shared a DVD of a case study of Youth-to-Youth implementing Six Billion Paths to Peace in an event called “Pay it Forward” in San Ramon, Fall 2009. During this event, high school students divided into teams and discussed ways in which they could contribute to their local community by sharing the concept of Six Billion Paths to Peace with others. One group decided to hand out balloons that had $5 bills in them in front of a local grocery store; another group anonymously paid for several haircuts at a local salon. In one instance, a patron who received a free haircut modeled the students’ behavior and paid for the patron after him. Throughout the day, students noted the “ripple effect” of their gifts and good deeds, and reflected that acts of peace catch on and spread quickly with young and old.

After a brief history and philosophy of the Shinnyo-en Foundation, Nathanson described the Six Billion Paths to Peace initiative and discussed how it is distinct from other paradigms of service. Participants were curious to learn that service begins with the intention to serve within each person. As each person develops their own path to peace, there is a ripple effect of peace and harmony in the world. Then, Tsuchida and Biggs lead the group in a reflection activity to decipher personal and organizational paths to peace. Each participant took time to map their personal “Mission, Talents and Skills, and Path to Peace” in a worksheet. Then, using Youth-to-Youth as a frame of reference, participants described the “Mission, Capacity and Resources and Path to Peace” of an organization with which they are affiliated. After this quiet reflection period, participants shared their worksheet with others at their tables. The lively partner-talk filled the room with their passionate discussion on their paths to peace! Tsuchida and Biggs then asked participants to share with the large group. Participants reported a breadth and depth of Paths to Peace, including one young participant’s path to try to make a new friend every Friday as a way of showing care and practicing inclusion at her high school.

Among the workshop participants were Shinnyo-en Young Adult (SYA) guests of the Shinnyo-en Foundation from New York, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Several SYAs reported being impressed with the ways in which organizations had partnered with the Shinnyo-en Foundation on the Six Billion Paths to Peace initiative and were surprised to learn about the extent of the Foundation’s collaboration with nonprofits and service learning conferences nationwide. As one SYA noted after the workshop, “The Foundation really embodies Peace!”