Young People’s Pages

This page will be devoted to posting pages and notes by the many young people with whom our collaborative has worked within the past years.

International Middle School Collaboration

From 2006 to 2008, the Journey Daybook conducted adventures with three groups of mostly middle schoolers at three very different cultural and geographical sites. We worked at a church community in the town of Florencia, Cuba, at a children’s home, Casa Milagros, in the Sacred Valley of the high Andes in Peru, and at the Cedar Key School in Cedar Key, Florida.

San Juan Bautista is an Episcopal Church congregation that has existed in this central Cuban community of Florencia, in Ciego de Avila Province, since the 19th century. The families have managed to cling together for worship and fellowship throughout the long Castro regime. The church is small but well tended. There are many children and a few mostly older women who come regularly for Bible study, church suppers, and for special events.

In February, 1996 Nancy Galloway, from Gainesville, a long-time volunteer with this Cuban church and Peggy Herrick worked with the community in Florencia for one week, demonstrating the Journey Daybook process. We gave the children small, handmade journals that Journey Daybook volunteers had made in Cedar Key and simple supplies so that each person could make his or her own journey daybook. The chidren and adults worked with quiet concentration for two days. Then, everyone shared the pages that they made. The pages were photographed, and a few of the pages were sent back to the U S. A year later, Nancy Galloway repeated the process with some of the same people in Florencia. This time she gave the community members loose pages and after they had recorded their impressions of the day and their unique experience, Nancy collected the pages and brought them back to the U S, where they were assembled in a portfolio.

Twenty-four children live at Casa Milagros, a renovated hacienda near Calca, a tiny village, which is about 15 miles north of Cusco, Peru. The family of children, and the adults who care for them, grow their own food, using sustainable agriculture in this beautiful, lush, green Sacred Valley of the high Andes.

In November, 2007 eight Journey Daybook keepers made a pilgrimage to Casa Milagros and worked with the children, making journey daybook pages with them. Each of the children described his or her life on this particular day. Each page reflects and is colored by the unique experience of living in community at this very special place.

Cedar Key is a village of about 750 people on a series of small islands off Florida’s west coast. The village has sustained a community since the 1850’s, and, except for a brief interruption, it has had a school population of about 200 from kindergarden through high school. Historically, Cedar Key’s economy has been based on commercial fishing, with many of the young people following in their family tradition. Within the past 15 years. however, clam farming has dwarfed traditional oystering, crabbing, and mullet and grouper fishing.

In spring, 2008, under the leadership of Deborah Manansala, the Cedar Key School art teacher, several middle schoolers were selected to learn the Journey Daybook process through a series of 5 adventures, where the students and Journey Daybook keepers made pages at important town landmarks: the museum, the school yard, the waterfront, a canal and boat dock, and the cemetery. Several adult Journey Daybook volunteers accompanied each week’s group of students, modeling and helping the young people. Several townspeople contributed to this project. The museum director and a marine biologist helped direct the students’ interest, and the pages reflect these adult contributions

This ongoing project has already demonstrated the similarities of the 3 collaborating communities. Each has a rich artistic tradition, which we are exploring together through the Journey Daybook process. Each also has an agricultural tradition, although the agricultural products are very different. The young people all have the same basic needs, desires, and dreams. These are reflected in the individual journey daybook pages that are posted below -