Seeds of Peace camp gets ready to spread its message
BY GAIL ROSSI | OTISFIELD Seeds of Peace International Camp this summer will play host to an unprecedented gathering of Greek Christian and Turkish Muslim children from the divided island of Cyprus.
The Cyprus program will run concurrent with an Arab-Israeli program from June 30 to July 16, said Seeds of Peace founder John Wallach. A second Arab-Israeli program will follow from July 19 to August 12, finishing up the last two weeks of August with a goodwill tour of Middle Eastern countries by all the campers, counselors and staff.
The camp’s efforts are gaining ever-widening recognition and will be supported this year in part by a grant from the Fulbright Commission, a foundation set up in honor of the late Sen. William James Fulbright. Morley Safer from CBS’ “60 Minutes” will film a segment about the camp the first week in August, Wallach said. And on July 8, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell will speak in Falmouth in support of efforts to start a Northern Ireland children’s program at the Seeds of Peace camp, located on Pleasant Lake.
The original mission of the 5-year-old non-profit international organization is to bring children from Middle Eastern countries together in a neutral environment to begin breaking the cycle of hatred that has kept both sides at war for generations. That mission remains a top priority, Wallach said, especially since a major deterioration of the peace process in the past year.
“We remain the last best hope” to keep both sides talking, Wallach said. Nearly all official interaction among the Middle Eastern countries’ governments has ended, which means that government-sponsored peace programs for youth have come to a standstill.
“We are the only Arab-Israeli peace program that remains alive,” said Wallach, who credits the fact that Seeds of Peace is entirely funded through private donations and grants.
The outreach of the island of Cyprus, he said, is “part of our long-term plan to expand the vision of the camp to all regions of the world that are at war.”
Wallach said he feels “very honored and very excited” to be hosting the 40 children from Cyprus in a first-ever outreach effort to Greek and Turkish children there. The 100-mile long island is divided by a wall with Greeks in the north and Turks in the south. The wall went up following the invasion of Cyprus by the Turkish government in 1974. The island’s Turkish population accounts for around 18 percent of the traditionally Christian island country.
“In many cases the kids live 10 to 15 miles away from each other, yet have never met each other” because of the wall, Wallach said.
Wallach said Seeds of Peace is still very much alive and thriving, despite suffering $100,000 in damage to camp buildings from the January ice storm. “A lot of roofs were broken through by trees,” he said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with workers from the Maine Youth Program, began cleaning up the mess on Friday under an arrangement paid for by the U.S. Army, Wallach said.
Staff from the Seeds of Peace offices in New York City and Washington, D.C., will begin arriving June 25 to get ready for the first set of campers and a July 2 flag-raising ceremony. Wallach said hosts are being sought in the local community to serve as escorts for the chaperones from each country who accompany the children on their trip.