Pedals of Peace - China & the United States

The premise of this initiative is, in the words of organisers, "children saving children". What Pedals of Peace conceives itself as saving these children from is persecution due to their or their parents' participation in a Chinese meditation/spiritual practise called Falun Gong (read more at the Falun Data Information Center website). The strategy for "saving" these children is communication in the form of awareness raising through a bicycle ride across the United States, as well as a rally, postcards, and a website.

In more detail, the Pedals of Peace team is riding bicycles across a portion of the United States, stopping to speak with local government officials, students in schools, and adults and youth in communities along the way. Several adults, including experienced bikers, will join the teens in their continuous, relay-style ride. Upon their Chicago arrival one week later (on May 21 2004), the Pedals of Peace team has scheduled a rally and press conference to publicly speak out about the experiences of their peers in China.

This young team has developed additional strategies to involve their USA peers in communication efforts around the cause. Visitors to the Pedals of Peace website may read about and create paper lotus flowers (Petals of Peace) as well as banners and other materials to help people understand what is happening to the children in China. (This component of the initiative is carried out by Petals of Peace, one of the non-profit organisations linked with the young Pedals of Peace group. For more information on Petals of Peace, click here.) Pedals of Peace team members have used email messages and their own website to spread the word and seek support for their ride. They hope that, by doing so, people may be made aware of what they describe as "the persecution of Chinese children". Through those means, Pedals of Peace is collecting the personal feelings of people around the world and printing them onto the backs of postcards that they themselves have designed. These postcards will be on public display when they arrive in Chicago.

Visitors to the Pedals of Peace website may track riders' daily efforts. They may also read various stories about persecution, watch short films and meet the riders (through video), and learn about how they can help - by, for instance, writing, calling, or emailing their senators or congresspeople to share their opinions about what is happening in China.

Rights, Children, Youth.

According to organisers, Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a practice of meditation and exercises with teachings based on the universal principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." It is practiced freely in over 50 countries worldwide. The Falun Dafa Information Center, which tracks the persecution in China, has verified more than 850 deaths in China, but they say the number could be much higher. They claim that "These atrocities in China have been especially focused on those children who either practice or are the sons and daughters of practitioners....As far as human rights are concerned, they have learned an important lesson: if you do nothing - nothing will happen. So these teens have decided to try to do something that few people their age would even consider - to save the lives of those kids in China."

More specifically, in the words of Karen Chen, a 10-year-old Pedals of Peace supporter, "Chinese children in China are being persecuted in all ways. Young practitioners' parents are taken away to labor camps and jail when no one is to care for the kids at home. This has left many children hungry with no one to feed them and they also feel lonely. Other children in their school will not like anyone who has their parents in jail, right? If the principal of his or her school finds out, they will expel the student from that school. So many of them have no education now. Many kids in China have also been directly persecuted. Chinese police break into the children's homes and ask questions like: Where are your parents? Do you practice Falun Gong? Are your parents Falun Gong practitioners? If the young practitioner refused to answer, the police would sometimes hit them and kick them or not let them get up..."