#12 - RW 270
The Post-Crescent (Wisconsin)
August 18, 2003
Russian-American teens motivated by a real-life cause
By Kathy Walsh Nufer

Four Appleton teens traveled to Russia in July to help young people there map out serious solutions to combat the global threat of chemical weapons.

They’re home now, their lives forever changed.

As 2003 International Future Problem Solving champions, North High School teammates Lisa Belgam, Luke Mayefski, Meredith Reed and Peter Truby had a lot to teach a rookie FPS team from Shchuchye, a Fox Cities’ Russian sister city.

But that was more about the art of academic competition.

As partners with the Russian team in an FPS community problem-solving project to help Shchuchye’s people feel safer in the shadow of two million stockpiled weapons, there were real lives at stake and they had much to learn.

Working side by side, the two teams of teens hammered out a plan they hope will lead to an effective warning system and evacuation plan to protect Shchuchye residents who live near the site of the U.S.-Russian plant being built to dispose of artillery shells and warheads filled with lethal nerve agents.

Now, the real work begins, say Appleton teammates, eager to check down their to-do list, including a presentation for the International Community Partnerships Conference Oct. 1-3 featuring Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev.

The former Soviet president founded Green Cross International, a nonprofit group dedicated to eliminating weapons of mass destruction. They stayed in one of his Green Cross camps near Schuchye.

As they use their FPS skills to investigate sources of gas masks and various American emergency evacuation plans, the Appleton teens hope to enlist more Fox Valley students in the cause, especially now that they have lived in the hot zone with families they care deeply about.

“If something happened to them, I don’t know what I’d do,” says Reed, who returned awed and humbled by her hosts’ ability to rise above difficult conditions. “At first I felt we were going to change their country in some way so it would be better. By the end I thought maybe we didn’t want to change the people of Schuchye. They are so wonderful, so hospitable. In many respects I feel like they have a lot more in their lives than I do in mine.”

“Seeing those people touched me and everyone else who went,” says Mayefski. “It changed my viewpoint on life. How are you supposed to live the same after this?”

For the North High School seniors, tackling a real life problem with life and death consequences was overwhelming, but they say it was even more so for the Russian teens who feel little sense of control over the situation in their back yard.

Impassable roads, gas masks for only 40 percent of the Schuchye population, no broadcast warning system other than two loudspeakers and no evacuation plan other than ominous advice to “turn your shoulder to the wind and walk,” make things seem hopeless.

Yet as they brainstormed ideas with the Appleton teens, a sense of empowerment emerged, says Truby. “Their faces would just light up.”

They knew that if anything is going to change it must come from them.

The Appleton teens believe they gave the Russians hope. “When we were all exhausted, they really were excited to keep going,” Belgam recalls.

Coach Marlys Reed is already making plans for the Russian team to visit next April so it can compete in the state FPS competition and present its joint project with North.

In 2005 North’s current 10th grade FPS team will visit Schuchye to continue the project.

“This trip made me realize the Russians really need this program,” she says. “These kids are 15-18 and in 5-10 years they are going to be in charge. Whether its empowerment, thinking skills or networking with our kids, I know they can make a big difference.”

For more information on the Appleton-Schuchye community problem-solving project and how you can help see www.arch. foxcitieskurgan.org

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