TPS's Activity Report
- Date:
- December 2013 - March 2014
- Location:
- At Jonathan's house (one of the core members)
- Participants:
- 7 core members
- Subject:
- The path until the establishment of the team
We were seven friends who would gather at school, cafes and friends' houses and often talk about various things.
We used to sometimes have discussions about things like world issues, especially wars, hunger and child labour. However, when we gathered in Jonathan's house in of December 2013, we talked more seriously and deeply than usual. Our topics extended as far as egoism and cruelty in the world.
We were looking at a site, which was created by World Bank and show cased the poverty situation in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFHctW3zQgg&feature=youtu.be
We talked about the 12-year-old legend, Severn Suzuki, who gave a speech at the United Nations Conference (Environmental Summit) that was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992. We started to think, "It is the words and actions taken or spoken by children that can change the world, since we are the future".
In fact, we had been actively involved in volunteer activities at school as well. More importantly, we mutually recognized that we are all friends despite our differences. Since we often got together and have serious discussions about world peace.
So we decided to make a team by ourselves and organise activities with the idea in mind, "Teenagers helping to spread world peace".
During our winter break, we decided to study, volunteer and do charity activities in the world. We also planned to discuss the study results in January of 2014. That was how we started our group.
In January 2014, seven members gathered at Jonathan's house again. We discussed the survey and looked at results of the 37 organisations in the world.
For example, "Even though those organisations had good concepts, they had financial problems and their activities are thought to be unsuccessful because donations and funds are insufficient".
Some of the opinions were very harsh. For instance, "On the other hand, some NGOs, which are subsidiaries of the United Nations, have no financial problems. However, those activities are uninteresting and have no impact". "Some organisations look like profit-pursuing volunteer businesses".
Based on our analysis results, we decided to create the best possible volunteer model by taking all the good parts of each organisation.
After that, all members and just sometimes some of the members had meetings over 10 times and in mid-February, the concept of the team was decided.
The concept was
One world, One chance. Let’s stick together and be forever.
(One world, one future. Let's support each help support our earth)".
First, we started to persuade parents and school officials to find some understanding and support.
The members' parents understood us, and some of the mothers cooperated with us and began supporting our activities.
In March, in addition to the volunteer activities that our members had done up to that time, we began our own activities based on the team's concept.
With our motto, "Do whatever we can on our own, with our own hands!", we decided that we would gather the money that we made from helping with household chores and would use it for activity funds.
Furthermore, some of the members started part-time jobs for activity funds and donations.
We thought the money we earned from our work meant a lot more than the money we got from our parents.
In this way, while being supported by our parents and other adults who encourage us, we have started taking our activities as a new team seriously.