English is my primary language, but even if I didn’t speak some Arabic, Greek and French too, I’d still be multilingual. As a dancer, dance educator and choreographer, I have always believed that I speak the universal language.

Movement is life. As living beings, we move even before making our presence known to the world. But some take the art and sport of movement as their life’s work, and use dance to assert their presence – and sometimes, help others to do so, as well.

Battery Dance, a professional company in downtown New York City, launched its Dancing to Connect programs over a decade ago. With these programs, company members travel abroad to conduct week-long dance workshops for underprivileged and at-risk youth. It very much reminds be of the work I myself did as an intern for the Hayatuna program launched by the Swedish NGO, Spiritus Mundi.

Instead of simply asking the children to watch and copy movement, the educators give the kids their own choreography wands, allowing and asking them to invent their own movement vocabulary. When I worked with the House of the Roses volunteer dance company, also a New York City-based organization, we employed this dance education method, and it proved extremely effective.

In creating their own movement to express emotions, ideas, etc., the children recognized in themselves greater potential and felt more closely tied to the project, more needed.

In Moving Stories, the documentary recently made following Dancing to Connect in Iraq, India, Romania and South Korea, we see the same trends and behaviors: dance stirring joy and awakening creativity in the young participants, and gaining appreciation by both the performers and their communities alike. It is clear that dance truly is a way we can communicate regardless of geographical or linguistic boundaries, and also that art is vital to our collective human culture.

Watch the Moving Stories trailer here.

I love what director, Rob Fruchtman said in an interview: “Dance is both a way in and a way out.” In addition to developing a greater understanding of oneself, dancing provides an outlet through which one can release stresses and emotions normally buried within.

It is so commendable that Battery Dance seeks out areas where there is the greatest need for something as freeing and healing as dance. The communities highlighted in Moving Stories have suffered more than most.

Gender violence, abuse, war and poverty are prevalent in the lives of these children. In India, for example, Dancing to Connect works with young women who have suffered sexual exploitation. In Romania, many of the children are gypsies who were raised in slums.

Working with kids is not always a walk in the park; attention strays, feelings get hurt, manners are lost, tempers flare, etc. Add to that the fact that the target population for these programs has been disproportionately affected by serious issues, and there you have a massive challenge. Battery Dance does not give up, though – another thing to admire.

After going through an intensive week filled with dance, the kids perform for an audience. It is clear, by the time of the shows, that the children have grown individually but also socially. A sense of accomplishment and pride is palpable. New friendships have been forged.

So much good comes out of Dancing to Connect, but a week is fleeting. Battery Dance works to make these programs sustainable by training people affiliated with the performing arts in these international locales under the company’s leaders during the workshops. The hope is that these close to home, native language speaking teams will grow the program, or something resembling it, as life continues, that the week with Battery Dance will not be remembered as a singular rare opportunity but as the start of much more.

The performing arts serve not only as entertainment; they also naturally lend themselves to therapy and act as a launchpad for social change.

As someone who has experienced their power firsthand, I can only hope that they will continue to be shared, and with growing zeal.

I read up on CMRubinWorld about Dancing to Connect. The title of the article there is, “The Global Search for Education: Is Now Our Time to Dance?” To which my answer is: Yes, it has always been our time to dance.

Top photo from Battery Dance website; next photo from The Dance Enthusiast

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In 2007, the UAE became the third country in the word, after Switzerland and Japan, to work with WWF on an Ecological Footprint Initiative. The project measures a nation’s environmental impact. And the WWF judged the UAE to be the world’s most environmentally wasteful country on the planet 12 years running, a rank it only recently lost to Qatar and Kuwait earlier in 2012. If all of the world’s inhabitants lived like citizens of the UAE, we would require 5.4 planets in order to sustain the human population. But recent years have seen the beginnings of several promising initiatives to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainability across the UAE.

“In order to hit the targets and create a future that is comfortable, we need to reduce carbon emissions by 80 to 90 per cent,” said Dr Rob Cooke, the technical coordinator for the Emirates Green Building Council (EGBC), a group dedicated to the promotion of sustainable construction in the UAE. “Put simply, we need to halve demand, double efficiency and halve carbon.”

Dubai and Abu Dhabi are starting to address the public’s reliance on private vehicles and subsided fuel prices with their Metro and the Abu Dhabi Department of Transport surface transport master plan. Water is another huge environmental issue facing the UAE.

Consider, for example, the 6.5 million litres of drinking water used daily to irrigate just one of the capital’s golf courses. Abu Dhabi residents consume a per capita average of 550 litres of water every day. That is three times the UN benchmark of 180 litres per day, according to the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi. There is a growing awareness throughout the region, and many Arab activists are stepping up to confront these challenges. Hopefully the Eco Future exhibit will inspire even more youth to think about the future of their region, and of the world.

Read more about the UAE:

Dubai’s Waste amongst the Highest in the World

UAE Sustainability Conference Inspires Change

UAE To Cut Electricity Output, Carbon Emissions

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A budding physical discipline called parkour is attracting several youth in Gaza, aged between 12 and 23 years old to pass their time training in cemeteries, former Israeli settlements and in abandoned or run-down buildings. Parkour originated in the suburbs of Paris and originates from the French word “parcours,” meaning route or journey. In a very literal sense the sport is about overcoming obstacles, using your imagination and tackling the restraints of physical barriers to “run through” a journey. It inspires a philosophical outlook on life that reflects this acrobatic discipline.

Mohammed al-Jakhbeer and Abdallah Enshsi started this discipline several years ago and they have been providing entertainment and inspiration for several young refugees who are now learning the art of parkour through observation and replication. Mohammed and Abdallah have decided to form a team called Gaza Parkour, they are taking it upon themselves to train the next generation of parkour athletes to ensure youths can experience this liberating physical discipline.

According to Mohammed, parkour helps untangle the “anger and depression” that comes with living in the narrow, politically and militarily confined Gaza Strip, home to a boxed-in population of 1.7 million Palestinians.

They believe that, one day, their ticket out of Gaza will be through parkour even though, they joke, “Gaza International airport used to be our only way out and now it’s in ruins.”

Images by Klaus Thymann via the New York Times

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Gilad Millo, head of business development at Amiran Kenya and former Israeli diplomat, seeks to make farming attractive to Kenyan youth by proving it can be a profitable, professional business. Working together with the Kenya Red Cross Society, they have equipped over 1000 schools with modern agribusiness supplies. According to Millo, today the average smallholder farmer in Kenya is over 45. “We are introducing greenhouses in schools,” he said. “Youth polytechnics and groups are part of an initiative to develop the next generation of farmers; Facebook farmers.”

Millo previously worked for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, leading missions to seven different African countries. He was a driving force behind the formation of the African Women’s Forum for Israel. Today, he has returned to Kenya as a private businessman with food and agriculture on the agenda.

Young Kenyans are lining up for Amiran Kenya’s smallholder farmers’ kits. These kits include help with a drip irrigation system, greenhouses, group training and creating a business strategy. A farmer’s ability to read local market demand is crucial, because his goods are perishable. This project is being implemented in partnership with the Youth Enterprise Development Fund.

“So far, nine kits have been installed in Kajiado and Kiambu counties and will be handed over to the groups next week,” said a representative from the youth fund. Its data shows that 264 youth groups have already applied for financing.

Until recent years software, cut diamonds and high tech machinery were some of Israel’s best known exports. Today, Israel has also gained a reputation for being one of the world’s greatest hubs of green innovation. Governments and businesses around the globe are now looking to make stronger connections with Israeli agriculture, water  and alternative energy experts.

Amiran Kenya recently expanded its warehouse facilities and developed a new poultry farming kit. They anticipate pending growth in the small-scale and medium-scale sectors.

:: Nation

Read more about Israel’s green partnerships around the globe:
Japan Wants Israel Clean Tech Experts to Rebuild Fukushima
EU Upgrades Relations with Israel, Energy Over Politics
Clean Tech Bonds Forged Between Israel and Canada

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My nephews are fortunate. They live on a verdant property called Hungrytown Hollow among enormous trees and bucolic rolling hills outside Charlottesville, Virginia. In the summertime the two boys splash around in a lake near their property and go on long hikes with their father. They chase chickens and plant seeds and are called upon to help harvest crops, make jam, and even bake bread.

Sadly, and I know they would feel the same way, they represent a very small minority of young boys in the world blessed with such an environment. But that’s not the only way to live. How to ensure that children can still thrive in dense third world cities is a topic of concern for LPU – a Rome-based organization that strives to encourage traditional children’s play to integrate different communities around the world.

The group recently teamed up with Tareeq in Jordan to address just this, with some very exciting results.

What the children want

Tareeq is an open studio that provides a platform for cross-disciplinary intellectual exchange both online and in real physical space. Eager to help LPU provide an engaging space for youth to play among Amman’s decidedly ungreen spaces, Tareeq asked the children what they want and need from their city.

After heeding their concerns and recommendations, the group consulted with city officials and local residents to map out a plan to create a carefully-designed and stimulating enclave within the city. This space enables the young revelers to play, unfettered, without the constraints of security concerns.

Contrary to popular myth, according to Tareeq, children don’t need massive green parks to live a vibrant life.

Play space doesn’t have to be especially green

“According to our method, we build up empty urban spaces that are currently used as de facto walkways and shortcuts. We mold them into areas that invite pause. The spaces we design are both created and maintained by those who use them,” the group reported on Smart Urban Stage.

They have sourced a small u-shaped space huddled among a series of two-story buildings on which to place their new play area, which will be unveiled some time in the near future.

LPU notes that “congested public spaces, long distances and a lack of security that this produces rob children of their potential.” And if we want children to really flourish in urban environments, it may well help to involve them in the playground design process.

This kind of democratic involvement will be a new experience for Jordan’s children, but Tareeq reports that the parents have encouraged them to express themselves as openly as possible.

::Smart Urban Stage

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The Gulf obesity epidemic in has come under increased scrutiny recently. Supersized boys and girls are barely recognizable and four of the world’s fattest countries hail from Gulf nations – a staggering number that has increasingly tragic consequences.

Just 19 years old, an Emirati boy who weighed 170 kilograms was flying from Dubai to Bangkok to receive treatment for obesity when he suffered a fatal heart attack. The pilots of Emirates Airline Flight EK 374 were then forced to make an emergency landing in Hyderabad, where the teenager was pronounced dead at the Apollo Clinic.

His body will be flown back to Dubai on another flight.

Government officials in Dubai have launched a fitness competition that will take place during Ramadan in order to combat this growing problem. Although people fast during the day, at night, when they break the fast, they tend to make up the lost calories without doing any kind of exercise.

The event sponsored by Majid Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktourm, Chairman of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and Fitness First Middle East will award massive cash prizes to the “Fittest Man” and “Fittest Woman” in Dubai and hopefully encourage more citizens to lose the extra weight they’re carrying around.

:: Gulf News

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Khat addiction in Yemen has reached epic proportions and not only among adults. A recent report released by the World Health Organization shows that up to 20% of the nation’s children under twelve are also addicted to chewing the bitter stems of the Catha edulis plant, which produces a mild high akin to the effects of caffeine.

Whereas drinking khat juice is the new hip thing to do in Tel Aviv, in Yemen the epidemic has more serious consequences among the youth. Not only do children suffer from pale complexions and weak bones, but they also skip school in order to stay home with their khat-chewing families. This, warn commentators, could produce several generations of illiterate children.

Insatiable demand for a bitter high

By now, the detriments of chewing and trading khat are well-documented. Not only are Yemeni families ripping out coffee and fruit plantations to supply the country’s insatiable demand for this euphoric drug, using up to 50% of scarce water resources, but may also cause high blood pressure and psychosis in long-term users.

Khalid al-Karimi is a translator and reporter for The Yemen Times. Speaking with Al Arabiya, he explained why khat is especially unhealthy for children.

“Its impacts are not confined to the skeleton but to the psyche as well,” he said. Fragile bones and pale skin are enough to make anybody admit of the qat’s grave effects. If a child spends his time chewing that means schooling has not, and cannot, be provided. Consuming qat paves the way for a multitude of illiterate generations and destroys the health, heralding a desperate future.”

A drug more important than food

In March The Guardian reported that roughly 22% of Yemen’s population was facing severe hunger, yet most households spend up to 50%  of their income on feeding their khat addiction. Almost 80% of the country’s residents spend three to four hours every day chewing khat, and men are the most prevalent abusers among them.

Mohammed al-Asaadi, Communication Officer, UNICEF Yemen told Al Arabiya, “The income that should go to food, health, education and clothing of the children is spent on qat, which affects the family and the wellbeing of children.”

Chewing khat is not cool if it’s keeping young people from attending school. But how are these children getting hold of khat in the first place? According to al-Assadi, parents feed it to them in order to keep them safe from politically-motivated hostilities outdoors, and it is learned behavior.

Will the nation’s recently-launched campaign aimed at curbing khat consumption succeed? We certainly hope so.

:: Al Arabiya

Image of young man with khat via Bittermonk, Flickr

More on Khat:

Khat Juice is Pumping Up Israeli Hipsters

Leafy Narcotic Khat Trade May be Funding Terror

Khat – the Middle East’s Bad Habit

Yemen’s Economic and Environmental Problems Blamed on Khat

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