https://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svg00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2016-09-15 17:36:462021-06-29 14:09:07Project COMMON BOND: Promoting Dignity and Long-Term Healing In Youth Impacted by Terrorism
Philadelphia (CNN)She faced her father’s killers in a courtroom, and realized the al Qaeda militants held no power. He put Osama bin Laden’s image on a punching bag and let loose.
She has vivid memories of the years spent with an adoring father. His recollections of Dad are limited.
She grew up in southern France and reaches out to him on September 11. He was raised in New Jersey and made sure she was safe after last year’s Paris attacks.
They’re two strangers who’ve become friends over their unique and tragic bond: Each lost a father to terrorism.
Anaële Abescat was 11 when her father, Jean-Claude Abescat, 42, was killed in front of her in a 2007 al Qaeda attack in Saudi Arabia. He was a schoolteacher who had taken a job at the French International School in Riyadh and moved his family there.
Kyle Maddison was 4 when his dad, Simon Maddison, 40, was killed in the September 11 attacks on the United States. He was a software consultant for a division of Cantor Fitzgerald and worked in the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Kyle and Anaële first met five years ago at Project Common Bond, an annual camp that brings together children who lost a parent on 9/11 with young people from other nations who’ve lost loved ones to terror.
They arrived as struggling teens who had plunged to dark places. They were still trying to grasp the magnitude of their loss and asking the unanswerable question: “Why?”
They were quiet and at first frightened to bare their hearts. But they found one another and bonded. They could speak about the tragedy they’d experienced. They could talk about other things. Or just remain silent together. Each knew the other understood.
For Kyle, the camp quite literally saved his life. It brought him love at a time when he’d grown isolated and alone. Weeks before his first camp, the loss of his father grew too much, too unbearable. A decade hadn’t eased his pain. He slipped a rope around his neck.
“I don’t like talking about it,” he says, “but if I do talk about it, I have the chance to get the message to someone else who is in that place — to just keep going.”
Philadelphia (CNN) Inside the group’s sacred circle, a young Muslim visitor adjusts her salmon pink hijab, clears her throat and asks the question that could shatter trust:
“Do you think all Muslims are terrorists?”
It is a prevailing belief in her native Indonesia, she says, that Americans despise Islam.
The question is directed at 19-year-old Robbie Hayes, whose father was killed in the September 11 attacks on America.
“Not at all,” Hayes answers. “I have many friends who are Muslims. The people who were involved in killing my father were extreme radicals. Any group can have radicals who believe they are the only ones who are right. That’s when it becomes dangerous.”
Hayes tells the group he was too young to process everything that happened when he lost his father. He and his younger brother, Ryan, grew up in Amesbury, Massachusetts, and were the only two children in their community who were directly affected by the 2001 attacks.
“I was sort of like the oddity,” he says. “But when I came here, I felt like this was a place I belong.”
This is a camp for young people touched by terror, their lives interrupted and altered by a sudden and brutal force. Participants are the now-grown children of men and women who perished on September 11 and the loved ones of people across the globe whose lives were cut short by acts of violence.
There are 55 of them this year. They’ve come to the campus of Bryn Mawr College from more than a dozen countries separated by oceans and continents.
They come here because, like Robbie Hayes, they belong.
https://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svg00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2016-09-14 15:57:532021-06-29 14:09:08A camp for young people touched by terror
https://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svg00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2016-09-09 18:52:552021-06-29 14:09:08Children who lost a parent on 9/11 rely on family and community to carry on
Campers at Project Common Bond roast marshmallows over a fire.
Campers at Project Common Bond roast marshmallows over a fire.
Philadelphia (CNN)They are teenagers and young adults. Yet in their short lives they each have been touched by terror.
There are 55 of them, and they’ve come from all over the world to a college campus in the shadow of the Democratic National Convention.
Terrorism weighs heavily in this presidential campaign. Bombings, mass shootings, a truck rampage. The attacks feel relentless.
But in this place, there is talk of peace, of coming together to soothe and to learn from one another.
They are part of a weeklong camp, Project Common Bond, which every year brings together young people from America and several other countries to talk about their own experiences. It’s a program developed by Tuesday’s Children, a charity formed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States to help the more than 3,000 children who lost a parent that day.
The campers hail from differing cultures and harbor unique memories, but they share a desire for peace. They include a girl born three days after her father died in the World Trade Center attack, a Kenyan woman whose mother was killed in the 2013 Westgate Mall bombing in Nairobi and a teenager who lost her sister in the 2011 Norway massacre.
The camp has been held in Philadelphia for several years and this year’s session happens to coincide with the Democratic convention.
Away from the spotlight cast on politicians and party platforms, these young people who grew up in the age of terror spoke with CNN about their desires for a more peaceful world.
Here are excerpts from five campers who shared their views on how terror affected them and the current state of world affairs.
Zoe Jacobs, 16, Kinnelon, New Jersey
Her father, Jason Kyle Jacobs, worked in the World Trade Center and was killed on September 11, 2001.
I think it’s very easy to consider yourself a pessimist, considering everything that’s going on in the world. It’s hard to see good things happening. For me, my dad died in the Twin Towers. But I was very young at the time. I was just over a year old, so it’s always been kind of the norm for me. So I guess it’s easier for me to look on the bright side.
Because that’s what you do, when this is your entire life.
I don’t like watching the towers fall on the news. I don’t turn on the TV… If we’re going to use the Paris attacks as an example, like my heart goes out to those families that have to see that on the news. …
It’s hard because that’s your life. It’s your life on broadcast, and you didn’t really ask for it.
Javier Aparicio, 18, Madrid, Spain
His mother, Nuria Aparicio, was one of 191 people killed in the 2004 commuter train attacks in Madrid.
I didn’t really know what happened because I was so small. I didn’t know what death meant at that time. And I think that changed me.
I have always questioned myself how my life would be if I had my mom. When I go to my friends’ houses, it’s so normal.
I want to live in a world without wars, without terrorism. I guess there is a way to stop it, but I don’t know how.
Brendan Fitzpatrick, 17, Tuckahoe, New York
His father, Thomas Fitzpatrick, worked in the World Trade Center.
I think it’s really important that we all stay positive and that we all try to have a good outlook on the world. It’s really hard considering how many awful things are happening in the world right now, but the more positive we stay, I feel, the more we can try to spread peace and stop these things from happening.
What really keeps me motivated to stay positive and keeps me happy is to remember what has happened and what’s going on in my future. I actually wear a bracelet for my dad every day. It helps me remember that something happened, and it always will get better.
Like right now, I’m living with my mom and my sister. She’s 15. We have a really good life, and everything is good. There’s nothing wrong. Just personally, I haven’t experienced anything over the top in terms of terror — besides the start of my life. …
Sorry, I need to collect my thoughts a little bit. Because of the beginning of my life starting out really rough, I feel like as I’ve grown up I’ve gotten used to things being a little tougher.
I try to stay positive to keep everyone around me happy, because I want to be a light that shines and helps everyone else stay bright. I try to live my life in a way that would make (my father) proud.
Astrid Boeyum Kloven, 17, Oslo, Norway
Her sister, Margrethe Boeyum Kloven, was one of 77 people gunned down by Andres Breivik in Utoya, Norway, in 2011.
Don’t fight violence with violence. I know that’s kind of cliché, but I think it’s very important to remember that. Not everything is solved with violence. We live in a violent world, but we should probably try to stand together and try fighting back — but not with violence.
Everybody wants to seek revenge, but take a step back and take a deep breath. Evaluate whether taking revenge will really help. You won’t get better by hurting anybody else, because the pain will still be there. You won’t gain anything from it.
My sister was my best friend. She was three years older than me. We had a lot of fun. Of course, she was my sister so we kind of annoyed each other. But I loved her. Like a lot.
I will never forgive the killer. But I don’t think about him. I don’t, like, give him any thought. But, yeah, I will never forgive him.
Morgan Rodriguez, 14, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
Morgan was born three days after the 9/11 attacks that killed her firefighter father, Anthony Rodriguez.
With the presidential election and all the terrorist attacks, we’re just kind of on different sides. America should stay united as a country, but right now we’re divided trying to figure out who is going to be president when we need to focus on bettering security.
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We go to a memorial every year and go see my grandma. She’ll tell stories about him and the way he lived. My older brother talks about him a lot.
When I was little I used to retell his stories as my own. Like the only one my mom has told me about is one time, my brother and dad were building an igloo in the snow in the front yard in New York. I was like, “Mom, mom, remember that time me and Dad built an igloo in the front yard?”
She was like, “I remember that, but I don’t think it was you.”
https://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svg00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2016-07-27 20:35:032021-06-29 14:09:08Children stung by terror: Stop the hate
They were children that Tuesday when the world changed.
Jessica Murphy was 5 years old on Sept. 11, 2001, a kindergartner at P.S. 183 on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Rob Pycior was 8 and at home with his mother in Landover, Md., when the phone rang that day. Pycior’s father, stationed at the Pentagon, told them to turn on the TV, and they watched as the second airplane hit the World Trade Center.
As the nation grieved the terrorist attacks, Murphy and Pycior suffered a personal tragedy. Murphy’s father died in the North Tower at his Cantor Fitzgerald office. Pycior’s father died in the Pentagon’s Navy Command Center.
Now young adults, Murphy and Pycior still bear the emotional toll of the deaths of their fathers. But they are working to help combat terrorism by promoting peace.
Murphy and Pycior met up in the Washington area this week to participate in a program at George Mason University designed for the children of Sept. 11 victims, helping them push for worldwide peace efforts.
Casey Hargrave, 21, who was 6 when her father was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, participates in a peace-building and conflict-resolution workshop in Arlington. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post)
The four-day seminar and leadership program is part of Project Common Bond, which brings together teens and young adults who share the experience of losing a family member because of “an act of terrorism, violent extremism or war.”
At George Mason, Murphy and Pycior joined six others personally affected by Sept. 11 and met with professors and experts in conflict negotiations to discuss healing, community building and other techniques that can aid collaboration and the peaceful end of conflict.
“They obviously have a unique story to tell as victims of terrorism and violence extremism, and their points of view are those that the world needs to hear,” said Deirdre Dolan, a program manager for Tuesday’s Children, a nonprofit group that runs the Project Common Bond seminars. “By giving them these skills in conflict resolution, we’re helping them to go out into the world as peace builders and counter the narrative of violent terrorism.”
Pycior said that the program is beneficial for young people like him who share the common bond of having lost family in the terrorist attacks. Pycior wears a bracelet inscribed with his father’s name, a daily reminder of what he lost.
“It’s just a deep connection that is near instantaneous,” said Pycior, 22, who is studying social work in graduate school at Rutgers University. “With 9/11, it’s ‘Never forget.’ That moniker has stayed with me and other surviving families of 9/11.”
At George Mason, Pycior said that each of the eight young people in the room taking part in a peace-building exercise are tied to history. Murphy said that participating in events such as Project Common Bond offers her the opportunity to meet others who share her experience.
Jessica Murphy, 19, who was 5 when her father was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, participates in a workshop at George Mason University. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post)
“I’ve known from a young age that bad things can happen,” said Murphy, 19, a freshman at Brown University. “September 11th was a traumatic day and the whole country was traumatized by it, but having a personal experience in the national grief made it deeper.”
Casey Hargrave, who was 6 at the time, said she remembers her mother pulling her close and telling her that her father was not coming home from his office that day. Her father also worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm that lost 658 employees at the World Trade Center.
Touched personally by terrorism, Hargrave, a junior at George Washington University, hopes one day to combat it as a diplomat with the State Department or at the National Counterterrorism Center. She has studied Sharia law, the history of the Middle East and has taken Arabic classes in college, all in an effort to get a better understanding of what breeds terrorist actions. Hargrave said that learning conflict resolution skills will play a crucial role in her future.
“I think that the first step is you have to secure it and make the world a safer place before you can sit down and talk things out,” said Hargrave, 21. “But if you bring up a whole generation of kids who know these skills, who know how to talk it out before fighting to resolve conflicts, it’s going to change it.”
00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2016-01-11 14:31:282021-06-29 14:09:09For Young Adults Who Lost Parents on Sept. 11, a Hope for Peace
How Children of 9/11 Turn Tragedy Into Inspiration
For the more than 3,000 children who lost parents on 9/11, the events of that day will forever impact their lives. But now that 14 years have passed, many of those kids have matured into adults who are trying to map their own course in the world, and are striving to become more than their “9/11 kid” label.
“We do a lot of work with young people in order to not have 9/11 define or limit them, but to provide a platform for growth and a vision for their future,” Terry Sears, executive director of Tuesday’s Children, an organization founded to promote the healing of those directly affected by the attacks, tells Yahoo Parenting. “What we do is try to make leaders out of them.”
The average age of the 3,051 children whose parents were killed on 9/11 was 8 years old, which means “the core constituency of kids are in college, or have just graduated and are launching their careers,” Sears says. “We focus a lot on our career resource center, so these young people are not limited in any way by how they’ve been defined in public.”
But while that “9/11 kid” label can be limiting, it can also be motivating, says Robbie Pycior, 22, a firefighter who is currently getting a master’s degree in social work. His father, a Navy officer, was killed while stationed at the Pentagon 14 years ago. “It’s a balancing act,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. “Being a 9/11 family member, I have an experience that is invaluable to the work that I do. But on the flip side, if my friend introduces me to someone, do I want them to say ‘This is Robbie, his dad was killed in a terrorist attack’? No, that’s not who I want to be.”
Robbie Pycior, whose father died at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, at the World Trade Center Memorial. (Photo: Robbie Pycior)
As he’s been able to get more distance from that day, Pycior says he’s become better equipped to cope with his own grief, and in turn has been inspired to give back to others who may be suffering similar trauma. “I didn’t deal with my loss for several years. We went to family counseling, I would be cordial to the counselor, but then I would take my chair, put it in a corner and stare at the wall,” he says. “As I got older, I decided to get involved in helping others. I am a big proponent of helping others to help yourself, so over the years it’s become about turning this loss from a negative to a positive.” Pycior says he hopes to pursue a career in the military or with first responders dealing with critical incidents or stress management. He also works with the Tuesday’s Children program Project Common Bond, which brings together teens from around the world who have lost a family member from terrorism.
For Joey Graziano, 31, the memory of those lost on 9/11 is a daily inspiration. His father, Joe Sr., was the sole survivor of FDNY Engine 22 Ladder 13. “He was in the North Tower, and he left the building before the rest of his firehouse because he was carrying out an elderly man who had a heart attack. As my father left, the building behind him fell,” Graziano tells Yahoo Parenting. “He was, to my knowledge, the last person to leave any Twin Tower alive, but he suffered severe injuries to his neck and back and lungs as a result. He hasn’t worked as a firefighter since.”
Joey Graziano (back row, center) stands next to his father (back row, right), Joe Sr., a firefighter and survivor of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. (Photo: Facebook/Joey Graziano)
Graziano is the oldest of four kids, and was a senior in high school the day of the attacks. The night before, on September 10, he got into the only real fight he’s ever had with his father, he says. It was about a college baseball recruiter —Graziano’s dad wanted him to let the coach know he wasn’t interested in playing at his school, but Graziano didn’t want to make the call just yet. “I screamed at him about how he didn’t go to college, he couldn’t understand, and then I said, ‘I f**ing hate you,’” Graziano says. “Here’s this father of four, there is nothing he didn’t do for his kids, and that’s the last thing I said to him on September 10.”
Every day, Graziano says, he thinks about that conversation, and the fact that he was lucky enough to have the chance to apologize to his father. “I know that somewhere there is a kid who was 17 years old on 9/11, who said the same thing because that’s what stupid 17-year-old boys do, and his dad didn’t come home and mine did,” he says. “Because of that luck, I feel like I have a responsibility to get the best out of myself and out of others.”
And Graziano has certainly lived up to that responsibility. With financial help from theFamilies of Freedom Scholarship Fund, which provides financial assistance to dependents of those killed or injured in the 9/11 attacks, he received a bachelor’s and law degree from Georgetown University, was a Rhodes Scholar finalist, and is currently general counsel and director of talent at the Headfirst Camps, the largest provider of summer camps for kids ages 3 to 12. His two brothers are a doctor and an EMT with the New York City fire department, and his younger sister is pursuing a career as a physician’s assistant. “My father thinks his kids are a great accomplishment. For a guy who barely graduated high school, he sent four kids to great colleges — that was his dream. But for me, there is nothing I could accomplish that would mean more to me than being the son of a New York City firefighter,” Graziano says. “I think about my dad and those men who died in 9/11 and the responsibility I have to that 17-year-old kid who didn’t get to tell his father he’s sorry, and I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything I can to make the most out of the opportunities I’ve been given.”
Both of these men, just kids when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred, have transformed themselves from victims to heroes, ensuring that the events of 14 years ago continue to propel them to greatness. “It’s not that 9/11 is an exclusive tragedy, plenty of people have been through horrible things,” Graziano says. “But it’s the one I think about every day when I wake up, especially if I’m tired or I don’t want to work hard or I don’t want to do that something extra that day. It’s what I think about when I am trying to be driven to change lives.”
https://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svg00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2015-09-17 13:35:272021-06-29 14:09:09How Children of 9/11 Turn Tragedy Into Inspiration
People often wondered what happened to her father.
Mijal Tenenbaum’s father died, but she didn’t like talking about the circumstances. The simplest questions: “Why?” “How?” would bring her down an emotional path few others have experienced as victims of terrorism.
The fact is her father’s death was widely publicized, plastered in news headlines throughout Argentina. Mijal was just 3 months old when a van packed with a bomb drove into the local Jewish Center in Buenos Aires killing her father and 84 others in Argentina’s worst terrorist attack. It’s referred to as the South American nation’s Sept. 11.
“While a lot of people can understand loss, it’s kind of weird having that loss be a spectacle in certain ways,” Tenenbaum said of the constant media attention.
For the past five years, the 21-year-old has traveled to Pennsylvania in search of others who can understand the pain elicited from losing someone at the hands of terrorism and global conflict. This year Project Common Bond brought together 60 teens from 12 different countries – from Israel and the West Bank, from both sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland and from Kenya. Most of the participants lost their fathers in terrorist attacks – one brother and sister were in a café in Saudia Arabia when a bomb went off killing their father in front of them. Someone else had lost their father in a suicide bomb attack in Pakistan.
The goal at its surface is to remind these young adults that they are not alone. For eight days at Pennsylvania’s Bryn Mawr College, they participate in therapeutic group work, leadership sessions and conflict resolution with the common ultimate goal of turning their tragedy into positive change back in their home communities.
“These teens are the most vulnerable to the narratives of violent extremism that we see throughout the world and these are the teens who are making the change and being the change that we want to see in the world, they are the ones that are moving forward with strength and resiliency and they are bringing that message back to home,” said Danielle Coon, Director of Project Common Bond.
The program was founded eight years ago by Tuesday’s Children, an organization started by the children of victims of the 9/11 attacks. Children like 22-year-old Robert Pycior. Pycior’s father Joseph died on 9/11 while working at the Pentagon.
“When I was younger I had a lot, a lot of anger, and the anger wasn’t geared towards specific people or a specific group,” he said. “It was just a lot of anger and wondering ‘why me,’ that’s a very common threat that other participants will say ‘Why me? Why’d it have to happen to me?’”
It’s not all fun and games at camp, following a Harvard curriculum and assisted by facilitators, campers openly address their trauma and experience with terrorism and teach diverse participants how to resolve conflicts and disagreements in a dignified way.
“Our communities all grieve for what happened to us but they don’t grieve in the same way,” Tenenbaum said. “It’s hard for us because we have to accept that grief and support that grief while also taking care of ourselves.”
This program can be emotionally tough, especially for those from either side of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. Tomer Avisar, an Israeli 16 year-old, lost his uncle in an army tanker accident. Avisar says meeting Palestianins at Project Common Bond has shattered stereotypes and inspired him to foster peace back in Israel.
“I try to become friends with all of them, it is tough” Avisar said. “I still haven’t fully grown up. It is tough for me, especially since I am going into the army in two years. Can I befriend them? Sure I can. I get to know their stories, and they are good people.”
Project Common Bond says the goal isn’t to create friendships but to create understanding, and make sure the emotional anger and sadness that comes from losing a loved one in a murderous attack fuels a positive change rather than a continuous cycle of revenge and more extremism.
Palestinian Tamera Abuzant is from the West Bank. Tamera lost her uncle before she was born. Her family told her was killed by Israelis. Meeting Avisar though at camp has changed some of her perspective.
“When I see Tomer, I dont think of the stereotype we used to have, ‘Oh, he’s an Israeli. He will come kill you. I know now for sure that not all of them are bad,” she said. “I respect his loss, I respect him as a person as a human being, and I have nothing against him as a person.”
As Tenenbaum said while sitting outside surrounded by other campers eating lunch in Pennsylvania, “We are all here for the same reason. We all want to make it better, and because we want to end these horrible events that happened to us. We don’t want them to happen to other kids.”
https://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svg00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2015-09-11 21:35:562021-06-29 14:09:10Program begun by children of 9/11 victims helps kids who’ve lost family in violent conflicts
Inside the Summer Camp for Teens Who Have Lost a Family Member to Terrorism: ‘Sometimes It’s Just About Listening’
Project COMMON BOND class of 2014
Mijal Tenenbaum was just 3 months old when she lost her father in the 1994 AMIA (Argentine Israeli Mutual Association headquarters) bombing in Argentina.
Growing up, she rarely spoke about losing him. Most of her friends had no idea how he’d even died. “It’s not that I was scared to talk about it, but I definitely avoided bringing it up,” Tenenbaum, now 21, tells PEOPLE. “It was a part of my life that I tried not to let interfere with my day to day.”
But then in July 2010, Tenenbaum met Terry Sears, the executive director ofTuesday’s Children, an organization founded to help families that had lost a loved one in the 9/11 attacks. Tuesday’s Children had recently developed a program called Project COMMON BOND (PCB), which sought to bring together teens victims of terrorism from across the globe.
While speaking at the anniversary of the AMIA bombing in Argentina, Sears asked if there were any teens in the audience who might be interested in joining PCB in Ireland the following week. Tenenbaum volunteered.
“I didn’t really have much time to think about it,” she says.
“She basically followed me back on the plane,” adds Sears with a laugh.
It’s a good thing she did. In Ireland, Tenenbaum met other victims of terrorism for the first time. And in doing so, she learned that she wasn’t alone.
“It was a life-changing experience,” she says. “I realized that it wasn’t just my story, but it was a worldwide issue.
“By acknowledging the effect terrorism had had on my life, I wasn’t letting it define me,” she says. “It had changed me but that didn’t mean that it defined me.”
She adds: “It’s very empowering to be able to take this experience and transform this into a positive thing. To let myself define my path and what it means to me.”
Now, Tenenbaum is one of several young adults who are returning to PCB this week, not as participants, but as group leaders. Together at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, they’ll serve as role models for the newest PCB participants, helping a new generation of teens overcome personal tragedy.
Mijal Tenenbaum (bottom left)
TUESDAY’S CHILDREN
‘There Is This Unspoken Bond Immediately’
PCB was first held in 2008 with five countries involved. (There are 12 countries attending this year’s symposium.) Inspired by 9/11 children who wanted to create an international community with others who experienced similar loss, the goal of the program is to get teens talking about what they’ve been through – and to help them learn to live with the pain of losing a family member without letting it overcome them.
“Young males particularly didn’t want to talk about what they were feeling,” says Sears.
But what’s special about PCB is that no one’s forced to open up if they don’t want to. “They don’t have to have these conversations,” says Sears. “Sometimes it’s just about listening.”
For the most part, she says, the teens aren’t shy at all. “They come together and there is this unspoken bond immediately,” she says, adding that she’s seen many lifelong friendships – and even some romances – come out of PCB.
Robbie Pycior (bottom left)
TUESDAY’S CHILDREN
‘I Was Just Very Angry’
The chance to meet new people from different backgrounds is Robbie Pycior’s favorite part of PCB. “Last year, I played the piano with someone from Kenya who’d never seen a piano before,” he says. “After five days, he loved the piano.”
He adds: “They’re friendships that last a lifetime that you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.”
Like Tenenbaum, 22-year-old Pycior is returning to PCB this year as a group leader. Since he first attended PCB in Ireland in 2010, he says he’s grown tremendously as a person.
“My father was killed in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001,” Pycior explains. “I wasn’t angry at a certain group, but I was just very angry in general. It’s been a relief to see that other people have experienced that anger as well.”
Now, he’s learned to channel that anger away from groups of people and towards individuals.
“There are bad people that are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, white, black, doesn’t matter,” he says. “But there are also good people. Being able to realize that is important.”
He adds: “Playing Frisbee with an Israeli and a Palestinian is just amazing. Seeing that they can be in the same place together, that they’re both willing to come to PCB, it made me realize that there are bad people, but there are good people too. ”
Jess Wisniewski (left)
TUESDAY’S CHILDREN
‘You Don’t Have That Awkward Moment’
It’s Jess Wisniewski’s sixth year returning to PCB. She’s witnessed countless teens come out of their shells, and as a group leader this week, she’s eager to take on the role of a mentor.
“It’s really, really rewarding,” says the 20-year-old, who lost her dad on 9/11, just a month before her seventh birthday. “In real life, it’s so difficult to talk about. But at PCB, you want to talk about it instead of being pressured into talking about it. You don’t have that awkward moment.”
And if her kids learn one thing this week, she hopes it’s that they know they have everyone’s support. “It really is a family,” she says of PCB, “a group of people you can reach out to at any point.”
Francesa Picerno (in the tutu)
TUESDAY’S CHILDREN
‘I Didn’t Really Think I Wanted to Talk About It’
Francesca Picerno, another veteran camper who’s returning as a group leader this week, looks forward to helping teens open up. “I’ve seen all the international kids who participate and they come closed off, but they open up by the end of the week,” she says. “I want to be a part of that.”
Picerno, 22, also lost her father on 9/11. She says she was nervous to come to PCB for the first time, but now credits it with “shaping the person” that she’s become.
“When I first went, I was very angry,” she says. “I had no closure and I didn’t think I’d ever get any. I was a very troubled teenager. Seeing how somebody else felt the same way that I did surprised me.”
Picerno can’t wait to see teens have the same experience she did. “It’s really cool to see how you can connect with someone who doesn’t even speak the same language,” she says.
She continues: “I didn’t really think I wanted to talk about it. I was really, really wrong.”
Project COMMON BOND runs from July 26 to Aug. 3 at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. You can donate to Tuesday’s Children here.
https://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svg00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2015-08-31 18:38:222021-06-29 14:09:10Inside the Summer Camp for Teens Who Have Lost a Family Member to Terrorism: ‘Sometimes It’s Just About Listening’
We are delighted to announce that Project COMMON BOND 2015 has been featured on Fox News. Watch the coverage below:
00Emily Racanellihttps://www.tuesdayschildren.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_20_blue.svgEmily Racanelli2015-08-11 20:27:132021-06-29 14:09:10Fox National News Features Project COMMON BOND 2015
