Seeds of Peace

JERUSALEM | On January 28-29, 60 Israelis and Palestinians (from across the West Bank) engaged in two days of dialogue, exploring Jerusalem as one of the defining unresolved issues of the conflict and hearing from guest lecturers.

By connecting the discussion to these issues directly, the seminar aimed to take the Camp dialogue sessions up a notch. In the weeks leading up to the event, Seeds met by delegation to research the topics relating to Jerusalem. The result was six hours of focused dialogue from which the Seeds came away with a much deeper understanding of the challenges that face Jerusalem’s residents, as well as concrete action plans to address some of these issues.

JERUSALEM | There was an air of excitement on September 4th when 86 Israeli and Palestinian Seeds from the 2010 Camp season reunited in Jerusalem for continued dialogue and a dinner to mark Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah.

Seeds graduates gave presentations and led discussion on the significance of Jerusalem for Jews, Muslims and Christians. The youngsters were then encouraged to share their family traditions surrounding Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah and seek information from each other about specific religious practices. The event culminated with a holiday meal when the East Jerusalem canon fired to mark the end of the Ramadan fast.

›› View a slide show from the summer.

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.

The day has finally arrived! After weeks of planning and preparation, today we brought 55 Seeds together in Abu Tor, Jerusalem, for the bi-national 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.

For a few years, Seeds of Peace has been developing a program for Peer Leaders (PLs) here in the region. Their position is similar to the Peer Supports who return to Camp for a second summer to help guide the younger Seeds and participate in advanced leadership training. Instead of working with the new Seeds at Camp, the PLs work in the region to support Seeds after they return home.

Today we had a chance to devote a day entirely to our 2010 PLs. We brought together a group of extraordinary Seeds from all over Israel and the West Bank for a leadership retreat in the hills outside Abu Ghosh.

World Cup Fever has gripped the region! It has been great fun to get caught up in the excitement over the past month. Houses everywhere have been decked out with the flags of their favorite teams, where normally one would see only Israeli or Palestinian flags. Perhaps football really can bring the world together.

Even though all of our favorite teams were eliminated long ago, we gathered a whole bunch of Seeds together today for two very important purposes: to celebrate Kaela’s birthday and to watch the World Cup Final.

After another productive regional meeting in Jerusalem with the Palestinian Seeds, we met up with a larger group of Seeds from Nablus, Bethlehem, Hebron and Ramallah at the Ramallah Cultural Palace for the opening of Budrus, a documentary by Just Vision.

Today we met up with Seeds from Bethlehem and Hebron at the Hope Flowers Center in Bethlehem. The group seemed really excited about the opportunity to share the issues and unheard voices from their communities through creative media.

At the end of the summer, we are planning to compile all of the stories our Seeds tell in an unofficial online newsletter we’re calling the Olive Twig, a play on the official Seeds of Peace magazine, The Olive Branch.

Today we road tripped up to Jenin for a regional meeting with Seeds from Jenin, Tulkarem and Nablus at Yusuf’s Center. There was a great turnout and we had Seeds from 2006 up to 2009.

We began our meeting, as we always do, with a name game and a couple of our favorite icebreakers (the counselors are getting really good at “WAA!”). The tone turned serious during our feedback session as we began to talk about the difficulties of Seeds of Peace programming in the region.

Thursday found the counselor team heading up to the beautiful hilly city of Haifa to meet with the Israeli Seeds from the Northern regions. Kids came from all over—as far away as Karmiel and Nazareth, which are both a significant distance away.

At one of our first meetings, a Seed said “the media thinks for us, and they never tell the whole story!”

Today the counselor tour bus (our trusty station wagon) rolled over to Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli Seeds from the central and southern regions. We had a wonderful time hanging out on the lush grass of Hayarkon Park. We even had a special guest appearance by the incredible Seeds of Peace counselor Lili Mehrel, who is working in Tel Aviv on a girls empowerment project she started called YALA Peace.

Today was a very exciting day, which marked the official beginning of the summer programming here in the region! We had the first of our regional meetings with the Seeds. We started with a meeting close to our home in Jerusalem. We had a great turnout from the Israeli Seeds, and everyone was excited to learn more about the plans for the summer. After we took some time to catch up with each other, and played some games, we settled down to business.

Welcome to our blog! On this page we will be posting stories and photos from all of our activities in the region.

Aaron, Alia, Kaela and Will arrived in the region five days ago, and we have been working hard to plan our summer programs ever since.  Today, we finally got to work with the kids for the first time!

This is the blog of the Regional Counselor program for Summer 2010! We are running a summer program for Seeds in Israel and Palestine where we will be focusing on leadership through journalism and creative expression.