Update on Salam Project: 8,000 Plays of Sudan Mission in SmallWorlds!
On Friday, February 12, Global Kids and the National Youth Leadership Council launched "The Salam Project," a month-long effort to support young people to learn about the conflict in Sudan and what they can do to promote peace there. The kick-off event took place in the virtual world of SmallWorlds, where a Sudanese peace activist and two Global Kids youth leaders, spoke about their work to educate others about the conflict and support peace in Darfur. Since then, we've had a great response from the SmallWorlds community to the project.
Most exciting is the "mission" we created to go along with the project, an online game that teaches you about the country of Sudan and the conflict there. Since the launch in February, the Sudan mission has been played more than 8,000 times!
We also launched another mission on service learning which we highly encourage people to play. To get started in SmallWorlds and play both missions, head to the Salam Project website. It's free and only takes a few minutes to register and go in-world!
All of this is to help young people around the United States to discover ways that they can help the people in Sudan, from wherever they are. Here's more of what you can expect from the Salam Project:
- An online social network and a youth-friendly virtual world to get the young people inspired about the project, share information with each other, and show the results of their work to their peers.
- A 3D virtual service center where you can find out more about Sudan, the peace process, and service learning opportunities
- A service learning curriculum and workshops that teachers and youth facilitators can use to support service learning actions by your students
- And finally a live virtual video simulcast on March 25th of the talk by Benjamin Ajak, Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng, three of the "Lost Boys of Sudan."
To get started, get more information, and register to participate, head to http://sudanpeace.ning.com today!
Special thanks to Mitch Olsen and the nice folks at Outsmart, Inc, the owners of SmallWorlds, for all of support and help with this project! They went above and beyond the call to support the Salam Project, from writing a feature story in their newsletter, featuring the Mission and Space, and building a special widget so we could bring in a live video feed! You guys are the best.
The Salam Project is a project of the National Youth Leadership Council, produced by Global Kids.
