JERUSALEM | The day has finally arrived! After weeks of planning and preparation, today we brought 55 Seeds together in Abu Tor, Jerusalem, for the binational launch of our Special Activity Program.
The first order of business was to catch up with all of our old friends. Due to the difficulties of personal movement in the region, many Seeds hadn’t seen some of their friends in months, and some caught up with friends they hadn’t seen since their time at Camp.
Many warm embraces were shared over pizza and soda. We were especially excited to be joined by a group of young leaders from Brooklyn, from the documentary project Breaking the Surface, which connects teenagers from struggling communities in Brooklyn, New York, and here in Bethlehem. They were a great group, and the Seeds were very excited to meet them.
After we got a chance to catch up with each other, we launched right into our programming for the day: we began with a fun creativity activity which had the students working against the clock to produce a performance utilizing three different art forms which explored the idea “My Voice in My World.”
The results were impressive, entertaining, and inspiring!
Afterwards we moved over to a nearby park for a very powerful activity called “Step In, Step Out.” In the activity, the group forms a circle, and a series of statements are read by the moderator. If someone feels that the statement applies to them, he or she steps into the circle. This got us all thinking deeply and personally about political, racial, and socioeconomic issues.
Afterwards we took time to discuss which statements were most powerful for the Seeds. Many expressed how surprised they were to step in for a statement which they assumed would apply only to their side of the conflict, only to find many people from the other side standing in the circle as well.
We finished the day by preparing for our special activity projects through an activity called “Framing the Issue.” This asked Seeds identify the issue in their communities that they are most passionate about, got them to choose an audience which they felt needed to be told about this issue, and then helped them figure out how to present this issue to their audience in the most effective way possible.
By the end of the day, the campers were very excited to get started on their projects. Just like the end of Camp, it took a great effort to separate all the old friends so that everyone could make it on time to their buses.