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Born in the 1960s, the educational organization Up With People was founded to respond to the racial turmoil of the day by encouraging positive-thinking youth to spread a message of peace and collaboration through a hip, two-hour musical show.

I joined the group in the 1970s as both a cast and staff member, and toured with over 150 international students, performing in seven countries and living in nearly 140 host family's homes.

Although the group flourished over the next 30 years, in 2000, the group took a hiatus to revisit its purpose and establish a new vision for its future.

Well, Up With People is back in business, and the group has been visiting New Mexico the past two years performing in Farmington in February 2007 and just this past week in Gallup.

Plans are also in the works to bring the group to Albuquerque in March 2008.

Led by its new visionary president and CEO Tommy Spaulding, Up with People has transformed into a more relevant organization than what was offered in its past configuration.

Although many of the original program features are still apparent, namely developing one's leadership skills, experiencing different cultures first hand, living with local host families and sharing a message of hope and peace through a lively one-hour public performance, the organization now strongly emphasizes the community service aspects of their tour to each city they visit.

Cast manager Martin Brennan said this at an informal gathering of cast members and alumni after the Gallup show: "A new aspect of their community service is that we share revenues from our ticket sales with local schools and nonprofit organizations.

"Schoolchildren and members of other local youth organizations are also invited to participate in the performance."

For example, in Gallup, monies from the show were contributed to several local community partners, including the Circle of Light Navajo Educational Project. And in Farmington, the cast contributed time and money to two youth groups, Childhaven and PATH.

For cast members, one of the leadership development aspects of the program is the opportunities to work side-by-side with cast members from other countries, nationalities, religions and ethnic groups, and expand their viewpoint of the world by meeting people in their varied audiences and living in local host family's homes.

Many of the people you meet become lifelong friends. Almost as a metaphor for this exchange of ideas is a series of songs called the Culture Jam in the show. This musical repartee celebrates the music and dances of different cultures from around the world.

In addition, cast member Jalee Kate Fuselier from Hawaii said: "Although we've only been together as a cast for a few short weeks, we've learned a lot about each other's cultures."

One educational learning experience included having cast members, who hail from over 25 countries, describe their impressions of what they thought people from their foreign counterpart's nations were like.

As Vania Kisova from Bulgaria described, "I was surprised to hear what others thought people from my homeland were like and it gave me a chance to explore our pre-conceived notions of each other and dispel any stereotypes."

In another exercise, students were asked to cross a line if they enjoyed a particular sport or food or other activity.

"We found that we shared a lot in common, and were really more alike than different," Kisova said.

I'm of course very excited that Up With People will be coming back to New Mexico next year. Their message of tolerance should ring soundly in our diverse and multicultural community, which already embraces ethnic viewpoints through a wide range of programs such as MOVE, the Mayor's Office of Volunteerism & Engagement program and so many others.

For more information about Up With People, visit upwithpeople.org or contact Kerri-Ann Appleton, Tour Manager-North America at (303) 460-7100, Ext. 105 or kappleton@upwithpeople.org.