The ferry is pulling away from the dock in Tsawwassen, and I'm about to begin my adventure on the Peace Bus.
I'm Annie Takaro, a 15-year-old Grade 9 student at New Westminster Secondary School, and I'll be spending the next five weeks driving across Canada, from Victoria to Halifax, with a group of 11 other teenagers and three adult leaders. Our delegation is part of a global peace and friendship group called CISV or Children's International Summer Village, and our trip will go from sea to sea ("C2C") in a mini-bus known as the Peace Bus.
CISV is an international peace education organization (see www.cisv.org) encouraging young people to be active global citizens and work to build a more peaceful world. CISV was founded in 1952 and has more than 200 chapters around the world, including 12 in Canada. I have been involved with CISV since I was 10 years old.
One of my best friends went on the Peace Bus last summer and told me how amazing it was. I thought her trip sounded like the picture perfect summer, and I've been planning my own Peace Bus adventure ever since.
I never thought community service would be fun, but teenagers like me plan all the activities we'll be doing over the next five weeks, and my attitude is changing for the better.
On this trip, our group will be involved in things like cleaning up streams, volunteering with needy people or seniors, and doing community outreach with new immigrants or First Nations.
Our goal is to make our trip on the Peace Bus "carbon neutral" so our trip will not contribute to climate change. We calculated the carbon footprint of the Peace Bus trip, and we will buy and plant about 800 trees to help offset the carbon footprint of our trip.
But it won't all be work and service projects: we are also watching the Canada Day fireworks in Vancouver, camping on Pender Island, enjoying the Calgary Stampede and visiting Niagara Falls and a ranch in New Brunswick.
I look forward to having you travel along with me through the regular columns I'll be writing for The Record.
