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Seeds of peace blossom every summer in Maine
India New England

Apr 21, 2006 / No Comments

Annual camp gets Indian, Pakistani kids to see each other’s points of view

BY MEERA RAJAGOPALAN | OTISFIELD, MAINE When 13-year-old Hassan Raza of Lahore packed his bags to be part of the India and Pakistan camp of the Seeds of Peace program in 2002, peace was the furthest thing on his mind. His grandfather had died saving his pregnant grandmother during the partition riots of 1947 and two of his uncles were killed serving the Pakistan Army during wars with India. His whole family was anti-Indian, and Raza was too.

“I was going to show the ‘enemy’ what I was made of,” says Raza, now a junior at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts.

What he learned during the three and a half weeks at the summer camp at Otisfield, Maine changed his life completely, says Raza, who is now ecstatic that one of his Indian friends will be a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall. “I told him I’ll visit him every week,” says Raza.

The Seeds of Peace initiative has changed the lives of around 120 such children from India and Pakistan through its international coexistence program, which aims to bring together teens from areas of conflict together, to make them understand the ‘other’ point of view. The program is funded by the federal government and a few private donors.

Seeds of Peace, which started in 1993, seeks to provide young leaders with skills and understanding required to help them effect change in their homeland. The international program was originally started with Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, and now has programs for countries like the Balkans, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Students from the United States participate in the international program as well.

The India and Pakistan program was started in 2001, and brings students from Mumbai and Lahore together, with plans to expand into other cities in the future. This year, the camp will be held from June 26 to July 18.

“The students that have participated are amazing,” says Leslie Lewin, program director of the organization. “One of the main experiences they have got is that they come here with their own viewpoints or their family’s viewpoints of the situation. For most, it is the first time they are getting to know the other side.”

The camp is like any other summer camp, with activities and games for the entire group. There are subtle differences, with the activities designed to help bonding between children from conflict regions.

“We would play most of the day, different games. We’d have Indians and Pakistanis on one side and Israelis and Palestinians on the other side, for example,” says Rashna Kharas, a student from the 2001 batch, now a freshman at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt.

The part of the program overtly addressing differences is the nightly co-existence session, where the 12 Indians and 12 Pakistanis were brought together to discuss issues of interest to them, with a moderator present.

Meenakshi Chhabra, an instructor in conflict resolution at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. works as a part-time consultant with Seeds of Peace, and has helped design the curriculum for the camps since the program’s inception in 2001. “The first few days are spent in just learning how to have a dialogue,” she says. “One of the main ideas is to ask the kids what they’d like to talk about.”

The Seeds of Peace camp in Otisfield, Maine, brings children from Pakistan and India together every summer. Chhabra says the situation during the first session was especially volatile, coming on the heels of the Kargil conflict of 1999. “Some of them come here with really hardline thinking,” says Chhabra, “and shifts happen with them as well.”

Chhabra says many of the kids come to the camp reading history books, and with a deep knowledge of what happened during the partition, but only from one viewpoint. “They were so struck by the historical events that are taught differently,” says Chhabra. “Of course, that makes them understand that there is really no truth, but there are multiple truths.”

Some of most emotional moments of the camp came when children shared personal stories with each other, trying to argue their point. Raza recalls asking a girl from Mumbai who he must blame for his grandfather’s death during the partition.

“She asked me the same question,” says Raza. “I realized that the truth is that I lost my grandfather, but so did many on the Indian side.”

The Indian and Pakistani children, like the Israeli and Palestinian children, share bunks, and are further brought together by living together in close quarters. Kharas says one of her favorite parts of the day was meal time, not because of its taste, but because of the lack of it.

“We shared a common distaste for American food,” says Kharas. “When you didn’t feel like eating the bland breakfast, the Pakistani kids said, ‘I’m not eating that either.’ It was nice to know that we share so much in common.”

The goal of the program is not to change opinions, says Lewin, but rather to try and understand the other point of view.

“In fact, I still believe that Kashmir should be in India and she (friend from Pakistan) believes that Kashmir should be in Pakistan,” says Kharas. “But [after the camp] I realized that it does not mean we have to hate Pakistanis.”

The children, called ‘seeds,’ also learned about the bias in all forms of media and literature, says Chhabra. “Now, when anything happens in their country, they compare the news online. They don’t just believe, but explore,” says Chhabra.

Kharas agrees. “I definitely take everything the media portrays with a grain of salt, I’m more conscious of that filter,” she says.

If the three and a half weeks were about breaking barriers, they had a more arduous task ahead once they returned home—that of sharing their experience to effect change in their spheres of influence. Raza recalls his return to Pakistan, a changed person.

“When I went back, I was considered an outcaste. My friends started calling me ‘Hindu-lover’,” says Raza. “But it only took some time for them to realize what I was saying, and they now stand by me.”

Kharas says she was written off as an idealist when she spoke about there being two sides to the conflict. “It was much harder to convince the older generation than our peers,” she says.

One of the other main components of the program is the home state program, where seeds from India visit Pakistan and vice versa. Raza cherished the time he spent with his friends when they visited him in Pakistan. He remembers an incident at the marketplace when he and his Indian friends were quibbling over the price of something, when an older man asked them not to fight and added in Urdu, “Are they Indians for you to fight?”

“He was shocked when I told him that they were Indian,” says Raza.

Some seeds, like Kharas, return to the camp as peer supporters, where they have their own international camp experience, and also help the participants of the coexistence program. Others are encouraged to explore the issue further. Raza, for example, is currently working on a documentary film that seeks to portray the partition from the Indian and Pakistani perspective.

Most seeds remain in touch, and contribute regularly to the quarterly newsletter “The Olive Branch,” meant specifically for seeds to tell their stories after their camps. Now, not just the seeds are in touch, but their parents are as well.

Raza now proudly tells the story of how his mother regularly sends gifts to her friends in Mumbai—friends who are mothers of seeds. “It took her almost a year to understand what I was saying, but once my friends visited me from India, she bonded with them more easily,” says Raza.

New Season for Peace
Portland Press Herald

Jun 26, 2003 / No Comments

BY DEIRDRE ERIN MURPHY | OTISFIELD More than 170 teenagers from the Middle East, the United States and elsewhere linked arms and sang a song of peace Wednesday for the opening day at Seeds of Peace camp.

Seeds of Peace, an organization that brings together teenagers from regions in conflict, kicked off its 11th season with a flag-raising ceremony. The tradition represents the teenagers’ pledge to embrace other cultures and ethnicities during their three weeks at Pleasant Lake.

The campers’ stay comes against a backdrop of renewed violence in the Middle East despite a Wednesday agreement among Palestinian militant groups to a three-month cease-fire of attacks on Israelis.

Seeds, as the campers are called, are 14- to 16-year-old boys and girls from Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, Pakistan, India, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen and the United States. Three different sessions this summer will allow campers to express themselves through structured discussions with fellow campers. During each three-week stay, Seeds from different nations share cabins and play on the same sports teams. They eat and live with people who, at home, are called the enemy.

“It manages to take people who normally wouldn’t have contact and have them sleep in the same bunk together,” said Oren Karniol-Tambour, a second-year camper from Israel.

Campers often apply what they learn to their lives back home. Karniol-Tambour said when he returned to Netanya, Israel, he brought his father, who found it difficult to agree with his new views on peace, to have lunch with a Palestinian friend he made at camp.

“It was very hard for (my father) to hear me say, ‘Now wait a minute, maybe you’re wrong,’ ” he said.

Although much of their time at camp is structured, sometimes the unstructured events leave the most lasting impressions. Karniol-Tambour said last year he learned just as much spending time with his friends as he did at the emotionally charged training sessions. His best friends last year were a Palestinian and an American.

“The first thing we did was talk about girls and music,” he said. “We’re all the same.” Only 15, Karniol-Tambour already knows he wants the conflict between Israel and Palestine to end. He says using violence isn’t the right path to peace.

“What you’re doing, in fact, is counteractive,” he said. “Blood only causes more blood.”

Sometimes it is this violence at home that has a disheartening impact on the camp, Seeds of Peace president Aaron David Miller said.

“The most different thing (about this year’s camp sessions) will be how they react to events going on at home,” Miller said. This year the campers and staff will have to learn “how to balance what is happening over there with the reality of what we are trying to do here.”

The camp is only one part of the organization’s year-long programming throughout the Middle East and in Portland. Other efforts include producing a newspaper, attending seminars and conducting online discussions to promote peace.

“Camp is the departure point and it has to be seen that way. Camp provides the transformation,” Miller said. “We also give them the freedom to speak for themselves.”

For campers, this freedom is precious. “It’s all safe. There’s no violence,” said Sami Habash, a Palestinian attending camp for a second year. “I always want to talk about my point of view with Israelis and now I can,” he said. “The No. 1 thing that made me get into this summer camp is it has the word peace in it.”

Americans at the camp also have the opportunity to learn what their role could be in a worldwide peace process.

“I’m interested in making a peaceful world,” said Abby Becker of Morgantown, W.Va. “I think I’m going to take what I learn from other cultures and ethnicities and teach people in my community that we’re not that different.”

The ambitions of these teenagers on the first day of camp are high, but for right now, they are just eager to go play.

“It’s not only work,” Karniol-Tambour said. “It takes a lot of emotional strength and it drains you, but it’s a lot of fun.”

50 Israelis, Palestinians end summer program with communications seminar

Aug 5, 2010 / No Comments

JERUSALEM | The Seeds of Peace 2010 Regional Summer Program has ended on a very high note: over three days, 50 Israeli and Palestinian Seeds gathered for one of the most eye-opening, intensive, and meaningful seminars in recent history.

After spending the summer working on their creative media projects (film, photography, creative writing, journalism, and more), The Art of Communication Seminar on August 3-5 was the Seeds’ first opportunity to present their work to each other and enter into an in-depth dialogue about each other’s work.

Seeds used their projects to share what life is like in their communities, addressing issues and stories that are too seldom seen in the news or heard by the other side. Projects ranged from original documentary films on the struggles inside Hebron’s old city to spoken word poetry about discrimination against women and violence within our communities, and photography that showed homophobia, discriminatory hiring policies, and many other themes. The projects were impressive and moving, and many reflected a tremendous amount of effort.

Throughout the seminar, the Seeds demonstrated an unmatched level of maturity and respect in watching and listening to the work of their peers. Through facilitated dialogue, the Seeds spent many hours reflecting on each other’s work and addressing the larger issues of the conflict.

In addition, we led a number of workshops specifically geared towards self-expression and listening skills, which helped the Seeds better understand how to effectively communicate their messages and become better leaders with strong voices for their communities.

We are especially proud and continually amazed by our Seeds’ ability to rise to the occasion and overcome so many obstacles to make this program a success. On our long trip north to the village of Peki’in for the seminar, we were repeatedly reminded of the realities of living in a conflict zone. After a very long bus ride for Israelis and Palestinians alike, difficulties in crossing a checkpoint left some members of the Palestinian delegation especially frustrated.

Then, as we neared the youth center in Peki’in, we heard news of a clash along the Israel-Lebanon border. Since we were somewhat close to the border ourselves, the news was of immediate concern. Once the staff confirmed that the situation had stabilized, we began the Seminar.

Despite these problems, Seeds on both sides remained committed to the importance of dialogue, and everyone was eager to share and listen.

This seminar was the first step of what we hope will be a much longer process where Seeds can bring their projects and their voices to their communities, to the other side, and to the world. We will be showing their works in a special new “for Seeds, by Seeds” online newsletter affectionately known as the Olive Twig. Keep your eyes open for the first issue, which will be released in the next few weeks!

We also hope to hold more formal exhibitions of their work at events in various places throughout the fall. Spending the summer here working with the seeds has been an incredible experience for all of us on the Summer 2010 Regional Counselor Team. We have learned so much from our time here. After listening to feedback from the seeds and the regional staff and countless hours of discussion, planning, and re-planning, we feel good about having helped start a new and exciting chapter for Seeds of Peace regional programming. The work was hard and the hours were long, but, as always with Seeds of Peace, the reward is working with these incredible young leaders.

We would like especially to thank all the wonderful members of the permanent regional staff here: Sawsan, Eyal, Claire, Layan, Eti, Eric, Sara, Ghassan, Rasha and Lipaz, plus Bashar, Iddo, Khero, Eldad, and of course, Eva and Leslie back in the States. Without their wise advice, logistical (and moral!) support, and tireless enthusiasm, none of this would have been possible. We are excited for what the school year will bring and are already looking forward to next year’s program!

Voices beyond the United Nations | Newsletter

Sep 21, 2011 / No Comments

Dear Friends,

Just a few blocks from our offices, politicians at the United Nations are debating Palestinian statehood and deadlocked negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, a new generation of leaders is meeting face-to-face and strengthening the relationships and skills necessary for lasting peace.

This weekend, 76 of our newest Israeli and Palestinian Seeds reunited in Jerusalem to launch a year of robust regional programs. Their peers from Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, as well as the United States are doing the same.

As action packed as this summer was—with over 300 Seeds participating in Camp, Seas of Peace, People Power in Jordan and the American Seeds visit to the Middle East—our staff in the Middle East and South Asia are planning an even busier fall!

Seeds will be meeting regularly for continued dialogue, leadership training, community development, and professional skill-building. Older Seeds will be preparing to lead dialogue sessions with fellow Israeli and Palestinians through our year-long facilitation and conflict transformation course in Jerusalem that will create a rare and critical facility for Israelis and Palestinians to engage in constructive conversations.

The leadership and engagement of our Seeds will have a profound and much needed impact on the communities that surround them.

Today we watch closely as regional tensions increase surrounding the events at the UN. Whatever the outcome of these events, our Seeds will continue to have the opportunity to engage with each other in ways their leaders cannot. So today, we take a moment to remind our courageous Seeds of the importance of their work together.

Thank you for providing our Seeds with the opportunity to build the foundation of a peaceful future.

Leslie
Leslie Adelson Lewin
Executive Director
 
PS: GREAT NEWS! Today, International Peace Day, we are excited to announce that Seeds of Peace has been selected by Chase Community Giving as one of only 25 participants in their Fall 2011 online voting competition. Stay tuned for how you can help secure up to $1M for our programs! (We’ll need all the support we can get—you can start by ‘liking’ us on Facebook.)
 

Seeds Impact
 

Enemies become friends through Seeds of Peace
Aufbau (New York)

Jul 23, 1999 / No Comments

A Summer Camp Unites Kids from the Middle East

Tall pine trees, a fresh water lake, hundreds of kids in green T-shirts playing soccer, canoeing and singing together: It looks just like another summer camp, but the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Maine is more than that. Some people call it the “Miracle in the Maine Woods” because here 14- to 17-year-old teenagers from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Qatar, Turkish and Greek Cyprus live together in peace—a thing their countries’ leaders just achieve on paper. As founder John Wallach points out, “it’s a conflict resolution program.”

“Inna is my best friend. She is more my friend than the other Palestinian girls,” says 15-year-old Rahman from Palestine and gives her blonde Israeli friend Inna a big hug.

“Two troublemakers found each other,” the bunk counselors comment, laughing. Both girls live in bunk nine with Amani from Palestine, Mais from Jordan, Marilena from Greek Cyprus, Fatos, a Turkish Cypriot, and the two counselors Suzanne from Canada and Amanda from Maine. They all got along from the first day of camp two weeks ago. With one week left they already started thinking how they could keep in touch with each other after they get back home. “We want to stay friends forever,” the girls all agree.

You can feel the spirit when the kids sing the Seeds of Peace song at line-up in front of the Great Hall. One Friday night they had a big party where everybody danced. “Those kids have rhythm and soul,” counselor Amanda laughs.

There is a unique atmosphere in the summer camp which was founded by journalist John Wallach in 1993. The former employee of the Hearst Corporation says: “Nothing was done to make real peace in the real world. It’s one thing for leaders to sign peace agreements, but an organization was missing that makes peace in the peoples’ hearts.” Since then more than 1,000 Israeli and Arab teenagers have stayed at the camp. This summers’ program consists of three consecutive sessions of three weeks with some 160 teenagers in each session. The cost for every participant is around $3,000; however, the participant’s family is only obligated to pay up to half the actual cost.

Seeds of Peace is an internationally acclaimed non-profit organization—mostly funded by corporate, foundation, and individual donors—receiving worldwide press coverage and international attention and support. US President Bill Clinton visited the camp, as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Former Israeli presidents Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Queen Noor of Jordan as well as Sa’ab Erekat, Chief Palestinian negotiator, support the concept. “However,” stresses Vice President Bobbie Gottschalk who is a psychiatric social worker with thirty years experience, “the governments just support us morally, not financially. We are an independent organization and we want to stay independent.”

Tamer from Egypt, now 19 years old, was one of the 46 participants from Israel, Palestine and Egypt in the first Seeds of Peace summer camp has since then been involved in the program. After just being a camper, then a peer supporter, junior counselor and youth leader, he is now a staff member.

To him, his first session was a great adventure, says Tamer. “When I first got here it was quite a new experience. The only thing I knew was that I was going to meet Israelis for the first time. We were brought up to learn that they are our enemies.”

Hence, he didn’t expect to become friends with the Israeli kids. “But once we starting sharing bunks and toilets,” he laughs, “I learned that I can get along with an Israeli teenager like he was a friend of mine back home in Egypt.” He still keeps in contact with the friends he met via email, telephone, the written word and even visits.

The Seeds of Peace program has the blessing of each of the ten governments who send a delegation. Through its Ministry of Education or Foreign Ministry, each nation conducts the selection process. Tamer, like all the other kids, had to go through a long and difficult procedure including several interviews and an essay on ‘Peace in the Middle East’ to come to the program. The aim is to find teenagers who have leadership skills and who are fluent in English because in the camp, English becomes the language they communicate in. Very seldom you hear a word in another tongue. Bobbie Gottschalk, a petite lady with short dark hair who was on Wallach’s side from the beginning, explains that this common language helps to build a community.

But at camp there are also moments when tensions arise. Counselor Suzanne tries to explain: “This camp has worked like a progression. There is the first stage where everyone comes and no one really knows each other. So, everyone is having a good time and meeting new people. But you don’t really know them.”

After the kids get to know each other on a personal level without being forced to think about the others as Israelis or Palestinians, the heart of the program—the daily coexistence sessions—starts.

The success of the program depends on these workshops. Here the teenagers are placed in small groups of approximately twelve which are lead by professional facilitators. Says Bobbie Gottschalk, “Here they begin to trust their own experiences and comprehend with an insightful new perspective the old voices of hostility.”

Friday night all the kids from the Israeli delegation put together a Shabbat service dressed up wearing white shirts. But a girl of the delegation, an Arab-Israeli, didn’t want to be a part of the ceremony because it was a Jewish service. So she asked to sit with the other children. The rest of the Israeli delegation accepted that yet they became quite upset when they saw her laughing during the ceremony. In one of the co-existence sessions the Arab-Israeli girls brought up the subject, initiating an intense discussion, during which one Israeli boy began shouting overwhelmed with anger.

Fortunately, the two facilitators Liz and Olga were around to steer the conversation in the right direction. “We were just so hurt because we love you and we care about you. And we know that it is very difficult for you and that you try really hard,” said another Jewish girl from Israel to the Arab-Israeli girl. When the latter asked shyly at the end of the session, “So, are we still friends?” and the Israeli boy answered hesitantly, “Yes,” everybody in the circle witnessed a touching moment.

In another co-existence workshop in a tent on a tennis court Suzan and Reuven, a Palestinian and Israeli facilitation team, uses photographs to work with the teenagers. The teenagers in this session have reached an important point in their progression. The word they mention the most in the discussion is ‘understanding.’ One girl puts the meaning of the word very nicely: “It means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.” Looking at the two photographs, ‘understanding’ becomes quite difficult because in one picture there is an Israeli soldier aiming his gun at a group of Palestinian demonstrators, in the other one there is a Palestinian throwing a rock. The Palestinian kids have a particularly difficult time attempting to understand the Israeli soldier. When the bell rings they haven’t solved the problem yet, but they have made significant progress.

In bunk nine, counselor Suzanne talks to her kids about the co-existence sessions. Rahman recalls, “When we go to the coexistence sessions we look like enemies. Everyone attacks each other. We fight, shout and become angry. I don’t like that. I cant remember that we are friends in those sessions. But when we start singing the Seeds of Peace song, we’re friends again.” Suzanne explains, “You are probably at the third stage. In the second stage, once co-existence starts, people begin to realize, ‘this person thinks a lot different than I, maybe I don’t like them as much as I thought,’ but then in the next stage people begin to realize, ‘Hey, I have to open up my mind and realize that not everyone thinks the same way I do.’ And that’s when people start to like each other again.” Inna, Rahman’s friend, brings it to a point: “Your friend is not the government of his or her country; he or she is a person.” In the woods of Maine there is peace. Yet how will they cope with life at home?

As they grow up, Arabs and Israelis learn that the other side is the enemy. They’re still being taught from textbooks that were made when the countries were at war with one another. “One kid believed that the Holocaust was when the rich Jews killed the poor Jews,” says Wallach. This is because many Arabs only see the state of Israel as a threat and do not realize how much the Jews actually suffered. Therefore, John Wallach finds it very important to take the kids to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., at the end of the program.

When they go home to their respective countries, they arrive with new, liberal ideas which most of their friends have never heard of. Inna doubts that the program will really help the peace process in the Middle East. She says, “We don’t have much of a voice in our countries, we’re too young, we don’t get to vote. We can weep, cry, it wont get through to them.”

But Seeds of Peace looks further ahead. The camp brochure informs: “By teaching teenagers to develop trust and empathy for one another, Seeds of Peace is changing the landscape of conflict. It is equipping the next generation with the tools to end violence and become leaders of tomorrow.”

Tamer is already going this way. “When I went back to Egypt in 1993,” he recalls, “I didn’t find a lot of agreement from a lot of my friends. Even though Israel and Egypt have a peace agreement since 1979, we didn’t have real peace; it was just peace on paper. Some of my friends liked what I told them and came to Seeds of Peace the following year, but some of them didn’t agree and some even stopped talking to me at all.” Tamer’s example shows that Seeds of Peace doesn’t just end after the summer camp.

It also shows the difficulties the teenagers face when they go back to their home country. “We’re putting the children at risk because Seeds of Peace causes dissonance with their immediate environment if they choose to think differently,” facilitator Reuven says. One former participant, Moran from Israel, writes in an email about a conversation she had with her friends back home: “I defended the Arab side, thinking that I was in for a nice long political discussion. But what did happen was my best friend got up and started shouting at me. He said that ever since I got back from camp I’ve been acting differently, that I forgot where I came from and where I returned.”

Luckily, those kids still get the support from Seeds of Peace after they return home. SeedsNet, the online website and chat room, enables the participants to stay in touch despite borders and checkpoints.

In October a Seeds of Peace center, the headquarters of the Jerusalem outreach project, will open its doors. Here the alumni will be able to participate in workshops and educational outreach programs in order to continue their commitment to peacemaking. The bi-monthly newspaper The Olive Branch written and edited by Arab and Israeli graduates already reaches thousands of teenagers beyond the alumni network.

New initiatives include graduates’ conflict-resolution training such as the Middle East Youth Summit. Slowly but surely, Seeds of Peace and the children involved are making a difference.

Jordanian Seeds take a deep look at their country’s elections

Nov 18, 2020 / No Comments

AMMAN | On November 10, a historically small percentage of Jordanians—just 30 percent—cast their votes in the country’s election, but Seeds were watching.

The day after the election, Jordanian Seeds gathered via Zoom to reflect on the election, analyzing the process and political system: from voter apathy to how real change occurs.

Traditionally, elections in Jordan have been greeted with moderate enthusiasm. The coronavirus did little to encourage voters, with campaigns on social media calling to postpone the election as infections grew exponentially in the months leading up to Election Day.

Candidates moved their campaigns online, but the date was not changed. Seeds discussed how the Covid-19 outbreak might have contributed to the apparent voter apathy, but explored other possible culprits: Whether the electoral law meets the aspirations of Jordanians, and whether it encourages youth involvement in decision making; as well as the weakness of the current political parties to form a true opposition that would force the governments to reform the electoral law, and the different reasons behind that weakness.

Seeds also examined many storylines that surfaced during and after the elections—especially the fundamental relationship between state and citizens, and each group’s rights and duties.

They pointed out how this relationship is “functioning” relatively well in large cities where most of the public spending is poured, yet it is clearly dysfunctional in peripheral areas where the state has withdrawn from its traditional role in development of the most marginalized areas.

This all led the Seeds to examine a question that confronts many young leaders: If you want to create a more just and inclusive society, is it better to becoming a part of the system and work to change it from the inside, or are other community ventures more effective?

Whatever path they choose, Seeds of Peace Jordanian Programs Director Farah Bdour said, these Seeds demonstrated that they are ready for the challenge.

As one participating Seed put it: “I will encourage my friends to answer one question: If it’s not us who will lead the change, then who will do that? It’s our future and we need to build it our way.”

Learn more about our Middle East programs ››

Seeds of Peace launches pioneering program for Indian university educators

Feb 12, 2021 / No Comments

MUMBAI | Over the last 20 years Seeds of Peace has conducted dozens of programs, workshops, and camps in India, providing hundreds of India’s youth and educators with the skills and resources to work across lines of difference and lead change in their schools, workplaces and communities.

This year, Seeds of Peace India, with the support of the U.S. Consulate, Mumbai, is proud to announce that it will be empowering even more educators through The Samvaad Project, a new interfaith dialogue facilitation training program.

While different faith communities have coexisted in India for centuries, a systematic engagement with interfaith work is fairly new for the country. In such times where religious differences are a reason for constant social upheaval and strife, we believe that there is an urgent need to train a new set of leaders in tackling the problem of interfaith conflict.

“A person does not have to be religious to understand the ways in which faith and closely held beliefs impact the way communities interact, function, and are governed,” said Joshua Thomas, Seeds of Peace Executive Director. “At a time when people around the world are increasingly feeling the effects of polarization, university educators are in a unique position to create spaces where students and community members can safely engage in dialogue that builds more peaceful societies, rather than tears them apart.”

Led by experts in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, The Samvaad Project will equip participants with necessary knowledge and skills to facilitate dialogue and create safe spaces for students and community members, thus helping them break cycles of fear and hate by promoting co-existence and peaceful exchange of ideas through dialogue.

The program is set to take place April through October, and will include a six-day, in-person residency, along with online training. All college and university-level educators in Western India are invited to apply for the program at seedsofpeace.org/samvaad. The application deadline is February 28, 2021.

For more information, please review the program brochure or email Senior Program Coordinator Urmi Chanda at uchanda@seedsofpeace.org.

Leader Focus: Meet Rukmini, a Samvaad Trainer

Feb 23, 2021 / No Comments

When Rukmini was a young girl growing up in Mumbai, she mostly thought of the word “peace” in the context of beauty queens and would-be saints: Miss Universe talked about the need for it, Mother Teresa gave up everything for it, but what, Rukmini wondered, “did that mean for someone like me, a lay person who has conflict at home?”

Her personal inquiry deepened with time, leading her through several peacebuilding programs in high school and, eventually, to college where she attended an interfaith dialogue session hosted by a Buddhist group. What she experienced there, she said, left her “awestruck.”

“I came from a family where my parents are extremely religious and caste-ist, and I knew I wanted to fight that but didn’t know how to in terms of having the emotional and psychological safety to voice that at home,” she said. “So to me, it was such a relief to learn that these spaces can exist that can allow for processing and talking about my own faith (or lack thereof).”

Having built a career in peacebuilding and corporate leadership development, Rukmini has actively practiced dialogue for most of the past decade—including as a Seeds of Peace Delegation Leader and Educator, and this spring, she’ll be one of four trainers leading The Samvaad Project, a new Seeds of Peace interfaith-dialogue facilitation training program for university educators in Western India. She has seen what happens when people have safe spaces to explore their beliefs and differences, and sees dialogue, particularly for young people, as a critical ingredient in building peace.

“In the world we live in, I don’t think it’s an option any longer,” she said of dialogue. “It’s essential.”

She spoke recently about The Samvaad Project and how educators can play a key role in providing safe spaces for youth to explore their beliefs through dialogue, just as she did as a student.

Seeds of Peace: It seems you were thinking about peace and conflict from an early age. How did that translate into action for you?

Rukmini: It’s all about context, right? When I was growing up, Mumbai was filled with gang wars and there was a lot of violence. I remember once, I was probably 21 or 22, I was on a train and there was a bomb blast in another compartment. The train halted, we all quietly jumped off the train, and calmly walked to the next station. While I moved on that day, there was something wrong about it in terms of, how can we just go on?

Those kinds of experiences intensified this relationship with conflict—that something about it doesn’t make sense and we need to work at it. And when I say “we” need to work at it, I mean common people. It can’t be something just left to governments or UN agencies. We need to have lay people working on conflict resolution.

What role do you see educators playing in creating cultures of peace?

Adolescence or early adulthood is when people are thinking about the kind of impact they want on the world, and I think it’s the right time for us to introduce people to personal responsibility towards the collective and how they can contribute to peacebuilding.

And peacebuilding is something that can be integrated into pretty much everything one does—into law, government-related work, design and architecture—it’s a way of life, and a way of sensitizing us to the fact that conflict exists in us and around us. If you’re able to integrate that concept early in our lives, then there isn’t as much resistance to it later in life, when one is faced with conflicts.

Given the kind of influence that educators have and the opportunity that they have to create conversational spaces in their institutions and in their communities, there’s so much that can be done. There aren’t enough safe spaces to talk about faith at the moment, so even if you’re able to even marginally increase the amount of safety, that will be work well done.

How does interfaith dialogue contribute to lasting peace? Can it be achieved without it?

Dialogue—interfaith or otherwise—is crucial. There are so many divisive elements all around, online and offline, and the only way to counteract that is dialogue: to sit across and talk about what’s your story, what’s my story, and how do we build our collective story and a shared future.

Why was this important to be centered specifically on interfaith dialogue?

First, because of the times that we live in, there’s a lot of propaganda around faith in every form. Second, because a lot of elements of faith are so unconscious to us. And because we’re often not really aware of the privileges we carry, we sometimes mete out unfairness without knowing it. So it’s really important to bring that into conscious awareness and start working with it, otherwise we end up perpetuating structural violence without even knowing it.

What if a person is not religious, will this course be useful to them?

Yes, that’s also an aspect of faith. If I’m agnostic or an atheist, that’s still my faith, and I still need to live in my community, family, my society where people may practice other forms of faith and they may want to be respected for their expression of it. And so my being non-religious may have an impact on them just by being what I am. At the end of the day, the fact that we are human and belong in society is reason enough for someone to do this work.

What can participants expect from the program?

There’s definitely a skills component in terms of how to facilitate dialogue, to handle sensitive conversations, to manage it when things get heated up, and so on. But a lot of the work is also inner work, which will definitely take participants outside their comfort zone, and that’s also the intention—that as educators, we need to live the process to be able to educate others around it.

It’s not always comfortable, but I would still say it’s rewarding because you see changes—particularly when you work with young people. You see how their world view changes and how much more expansive they become as a result of dialogue, and that’s worth everything.

What do you hope people will do with this course?

I hope they generate conversations around faith in a safe way, wherever they are. Even if they generate one question or reflection in their inner circle, that’s good enough impact for me.

Learn more about the Samvaad Project or submit an application ››

Rukmini is a seasoned leadership development facilitator, coach, and peacebuilder with over 19 years of professional experience around the world. She is certified to use a wide variety of approaches, including conscious and unconscious human process work, whole systems thinking, Appreciative Inquiry, Non-Violent Communication, and Neuro Linguistic Programming. As a Rotary Peace Fellow, Rukmini is a trained peacebuilder and conflict resolution specialist and channels her work in this area through her peacebuilding platform The Womb Tales. She has a Professional Development Certificate in Peace and Conflict Resolution from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, and a Master’s degrees in Organizational Psychology and Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the Mumbai University. Her publications include ‘A Culturally Sensitive Approach to Engage Contemporary Corporate India.

For 130 new Seeds, Camp is just the beginning

Sep 21, 2021 / No Comments

OTISFIELD, MAINE | Over 130 youth from across the Northeast United States participated in the 2021 Seeds of Peace Camp, marking a much-anticipated return to the shores of Pleasant Lake in Maine after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

And while it was a summer that was unprecedented in the nature of its obstacles, it also showed, now more than ever, the need to empower youth to work across lines of difference and lead change in their communities.

“We knew from early on that this summer would hold myriad challenges brought on by COVID-19,” said Sarah Stone, (a.k.a. Stoney) who served as Camp co-director alongside Spencer Traylor (2008 Maine Seed) and worked with a team of Camp leads hailing from across the Northeast.

“But youth and staff showed up ready to work across lines of difference with brilliance, compassion, and courage. There was so much beauty in their ability to share space and create a strong community rooted in care and in action, despite all the uncertainty and fear in the world right now.”
The summer kicked off in July with a two-and-a-half-week session for campers from across the Northeast U.S., followed by another session in August for only youth from Maine.

Closely monitoring ever-evolving CDC guidelines and following advice from public health consultants, a decision was made early in 2021 that only youth from within driving distance of Camp would be eligible this summer—meaning that for the first time in Seeds of Peace Camp history, there would be no international campers.
Instead, youth at Camp—and in all countries where Seeds of Peace works—began their Seeds journey by engaging in dialogue over issues within their own communities and countries, rather than focusing largely on cross-border conflicts.

For campers, it provided a much needed opportunity to discuss divides within the United States, with dialogue sessions tackling topics like religion, socioeconomic status, race, and political affiliation.

After a year full of political unrest, violence, and deepening societal divides, there was plenty for youth to dig into. But after a year that also wrought a heavy toll on mental health and greatly restricted opportunities for in-person social interaction, Camp staff also had to be mindful of when campers’ comfort zones might be overstretched.

“With so many schools hybrid or fully remote, youth’s social lives and interactions were mostly curated by themselves online and they hadn’t been re-accustomed to engaging with one another outside of this context,” Stoney said.

“At Camp, we did a lot of work to learn to see and hear one another not with the distance or wall of Facebook statuses or TikTok videos, but up close and personal, truly listening, unlearning, learning.”

The expectation for dialogue, of course, has always been that Seeds would apply those experiences to take action for change in their schools and communities. This year, however, a series of workshops that prepared students to do just that were baked into Camp programming. Initiated and designed by Stoney, Community Action challenged campers to work together to identify and prepare to address issues they want to change back home.

As Danielle Whyte, a 2019 Maine Seed and Co-Leader of Community Action, described it: “Community Action is the art of amplifying the voice of the collective.”
Grouped with campers from their hometowns, youth created action plans to bring anti-racist curricula to their schools, hire more diverse faculty and staff, and build school decision-making structures that are more inclusive of student voices, to name a few. For Cayen, a Seed from Maine, it was an opportunity to return home with “concrete, realistic” plans for change.

“I feel that Community Action allows me to be reassured, organized, inspired and ecstatic that my fellow peers and I have a solid chance at bringing positive and undeniable change in myself and my community,” Cayen reflected in a Camper Report. “Community Action provides a plan, a way to enact the plan, confidence that the plan will work, and a purpose.”

The focus on youth-led action underscored many of the summer’s new additions and highlights—from camper reports in which youth shared their first-hand perspectives, to youth-led special activities, to daily inspirations provided by a different bunk at each morning lineup.

Writing in one of the reports, Faysal, a camper from Maine, said he had come to “expect the unexpected” at Camp.

Whether it was trying a new activity for the first time or having the opportunity to branch out of their groups and meet new friends at Café Night, campers explored their capabilities and how these strengths might add to the greater good of their communities.

“Seeds of Peace is an opportunity for you to find yourself in a place where you can be yourself,” Faysal wrote. “There needs to be change in the world, and here is where that starts.”

Challenging biases and discovering truths: Indian programs engage 68 young leaders

Mar 6, 2022 / No Comments

Once a Seed makes up their mind, there are few things that can slow them down—not even Mumbai traffic.

When India’s COVID-19 restrictions finally lifted in November just enough to allow small in-person gatherings, youth did whatever it took to come together during a busy six weeks of programming for Seeds of Peace India.

In total, 68 students attended one or more of the various in-person and online programs offered for Indian youth in the final weeks of 2021. For some, this meant sitting hours in traffic each day, while also adhering to rigorous health protocols and balancing school and family obligations.

“The level of commitment made this group special,” said Sagar Gangurde, director India programs. “Despite having to travel for hours, adjusting to a horde of new people after two years in pandemic-induced isolation, and the physically demanding nature of the program, they all turned up every day and gave their best.”

Youth and adults were part of a burst of programs that wrapped up 2021 for Seeds of Peace-India. This included the first Indian Core Leadership Program, which launched in November with a series of multi-day workshops designed to give participants essential skills for leading change, including fundamentals of dialogue, humanistic leadership, and critical thinking around media messaging.

For youth like Mustafa, 14, the experience underscored the need to think critically about what they see and hear in media and from others around him.

“I learned how to embrace and understand the differences between people; about the privileges and biases we carry; and that it’s not about giving the correct answer, but about asking the correct question,” he said.

For adults, December brought the first Samvaad National Interfaith Summit, a daylong conference that brought together more than 70 educators, students, artists, religious and business leaders, and peer peace-building organizations to explore the importance of interfaith work and dialogue. The December 11 event also served as the culmination of the Samvaad Project, a nine-month program supported by the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai that offered interfaith dialogue facilitation training to university educators.

Though the program participants met the requirements to graduate many months ago, some have continued to hold community dialogue sessions for their students long beyond the course’s requirements—spreading the reach of Seeds of Peace along with the bridge-building capabilities of interfaith dialogue.

“’Interfaith’ can be a scary word for some people, and my hope is that these programs creates more awareness that interfiath isn’t just about religion, but what you value,“ Sagar said. “Samvaad and the summit showed the need for more openess toward exploring and understanding the benefits of diversity, and how these tools can be used in our lives.“

Later in December, the series of youth programs culminated with the Interfaith Harmony Camp, a signature program for Seeds of Peace India for nearly a decade. Over the course of five days, 29 students of various religions came together to explore different faiths through dialogue in a Camp-inspired environment.

They included youth like Anousha, 14, who said the experience showed the truth behind many of the misconceptions she had previously held around religions, and changed the way she engages in conflict.

“It made me realize that a lot of the time when I am in conflict with someone else, I am often at least partially at fault, if not for instigating the conflict, then for the way I choose to respond,” she said. “This prompted me to think more before I speak to others, as well as consider their viewpoints before making judgements about them.”