“[Invincible is] One of the most talented emcees I've ever heard black or white, male or female..."

-Talib Kweli

Speaking, Workshop and Hip Hop tour, November 2008
Check out our ITINERARY.

The Tour: Who, What, and Why?
Fellowship of Reconciliation’s (FOR) Nonviolent Youth Collective (NVYC) and Colombia program, in collaboration with the Not Your Soldier Project and are putting on a Hip-Hop tour with Colombian and U.S. conscientious objectors (COs) to the military. The purpose of the tour is to train and empower youth to support each other in resisting militarism through creative action, including building the international conscientious objector’s movement. We'll be traveling caravan-style with Colombian C.O. Paula Galeano of La Red Juvenil, Detroit-based political hip-hop artist Invincible and two NVYC staff. Check out their bios here.

We aim to:

• Collaborate with a wide range of youth through creative forms of expression to explore the issues of militarism and its impact on young people.
• Strengthen youth anti-militarism organizing while supporting veterans.
• Raise the visibility and increase the political support in the struggle for the right to conscientious objection in Colombia and the US.
• Build social networks and solidarity between the movement for conscientious objection in Colombia and counter-recruitment work in the US.
• Network with active, interested young people to build relationships and concrete organizing in 2009.

The Nonviolent Youth Collective and Not Your Soldier will be following up with interested youth to provide training and support to help mobilize creative nonviolent direct actions on and around May 15, 2009 - International Conscientious Objectors Day. This follow up includes organizing training and nonviolent direct action training as well as local organizing support.

General Information

• The tour will last twenty days, from November 5-25, 2008
• It will launch in Chicago and travel eastward
• A variety of workshops will be available at tour stops (conscientious objection, counter recruitment organizing 101, non violent direct action and creative resistance, etc) and Invincible, a hip hop artist to perform shows/concerts
• The venues will be mainly university and college campuses, but we are excited about club and community spaces as well. We are also excited about the possibility of house parties!

What happens on a tour stop?
For each stop there is a menu of options, and we can work with you to support your group’s goals. A typical tour stop will include:
*Two workshops – each 1.5-2 hours long - on Conscientious Objection in Colombia & the US, and on Art in Action (see workshop descriptions below);
*A club or campus show featuring Invincible,Detroit based Hip-Hop artist and activist and involving local artists if possible;
*A speaking event featuring Paula Galeano, a Colombian Conscientious Objector, on the situation youth are facing today in Colombia’s armed conflict and how they are organizing non-violently to resist it.
*Classroom visits to Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, Women’s Studies, Latin American Studies; Conflict or Peace Studies, Language & Fine Arts classes, etc.
*Meet ups with student organizers to help get people connected and involved!

How to Host
If you'd like to host the hottest Arts-based, Counter-Recruitment, Conscientious Objector Hip-Hop Tour extravaganza of the Fall, contact Brie Phillips at 651-757-5353, or send an email out to peacemakertraining[@]gmail.com .
Brie is available to answer any questions regarding the tour, as well as to provide support for the organizing responsibilities for tour host.

Tour Host responsibilities’ include:

• Organize speaking/performance events: at high schools, colleges, community events, churches, house parties, café’s, bars, bookstores, concert halls, etc.
• Arrange for housing for 4-5 people and food
• Secure funding from universities/colleges and fundraise at events to cover other speaking tour costs (we can help with fundraising ideas and/or working with the university to raise funds)
• Outreach for events
• Outreach for events, including networking with other interested groups, individuals and organizations to attend the events and workshops.

Resisting Militarism, Building Alternatives

Conscientious Objection and Counter-Recruitment in the US
All across the country, young people are standing up and saying “No” to military recruiters in their high schools and on their college campuses. Communities are mobilizing to create alternative jobs and find positive opportunities outside of the military. Youth in the military and “civilian” youth are defining themselves as conscientious objectors – those who refuse to fight what they deem as unjust and unnecessary wars.

According to the Center on Conscience and War, hundreds of US soldiers have applied for Conscientious Objector status since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, refusing to engage in armed conflict because of their beliefs. Beyond those currently in the military, it is also becoming increasingly popular for non-enlisted youth to examine their attitudes towards war and proclaim themselves as conscientious objectors as well.

Counter recruitment organizing, working to stop youth from joining the military, is ----

Educating our communities about alternatives to the military, shutting down the military invasion of our communities, schools, and future and supporting those who refuse to fight

----To name a few components.

Conscientious Objection in Colombia
In Colombia, all young men 18 years or older are required to serve in the military, unless they meet one of the exemptions. Not surprisingly, the way this breaks down is by class – if you are studying at a university or have the money, you can get out of doing your service. If you are poor and/or live in the countryside you are more vulnerable. Often the way military recruitment plays out on the streets of Colombia is totally illegal, with recruitment trucks rounding young people up at places where they meet --at schools, parks, or dance and billiard halls. Many youth never have a chance to file for an exemption because they are not aware of an opportunity (or knowledge of their rights) to resist. And without a military service card, men can’t graduate from university or get a job with any private or public company.

But it is not only the official military that puts Colombian youth at risk. In fact, youth there are resisting being recruited by three different armed groups: guerrillas, paramilitaries and the state armed forces. And even though the risk of being recruited is high, the responses of young people and their organizations are incredibly creative and dynamic. Youth from rural to urban areas, across class divisions, afro-Colombian and indigenous and both men and women are defining themselves as conscientious objectors, objecting to all the ugly faces of war, all of the ways we participate in a culture of violence and oppression on a daily basis. These young conscientious objectors resist through art, theater, circus acts and direct actions, while at the same time disseminating information to affected youth about their rights when it comes to being a conscientious objector and working to make conscientious objection a legally recognized right in Colombia.

Conscientious objectors in Colombia are working to strengthen the movement to resist war in Colombia, to make conscientious objection a legally recognized right and to build international solidarity with other movements for conscientious objection.

Invincible

"One of the most talented emcees I've ever heard black or white, male or female..." -Talib Kweli

"Invincible is one part emcee, three parts revolutionary, but the recipe is all Hip Hop." -Shook Magazine

Invincible, is a Detroit-based emcee and community activist who has been rapping and organizing for well over a decade. Her spitfire wordplay has gotten her acclaim from Hip Hop fans all across the world, while her active involvement in progressive social change organizing through her work with Detroit Summer's Live Arts Media Project, US Palestine Youth Solidarity Network, and many more, has taken her music beyond entertainment, and towards actualizing the change she wishes to see. Many are already familiar with her work with Waajeed and the Platinum Pied Pipers, Finale, the all-female ANOMOLIES crew, Black Star, and many others. Dubbed by XXL Magazine as "every A&Rs worst nightmare" for rejecting major label deals and general industry politricks, Invincible started her own cooperative economics based record label, EMERGENCE, self-releasing her long-awaited full length LP, ShapeShifters, in 2008.
Check out Invincible and her new album Shapeshifters here or for more info: www.myspace.com/invincilana