Seeds of Peace

Yousef Bashir, 22, lives with a bullet lodged near his spine. “When I imagine myself without the bullet in my back I ask myself would I be the same?” he said. “That bullet talks to me and I talk to it everyday. It is a very personal thing that I go through,” he continued. “I know that it was put there to destroy my life. I look at it and I say I am not destroyed yet.”

Twenty-year-old Mahmoud Jabari is a Palestinian photographer and journalist from the West Bank city of Hebron. He believes that youths will provide a way forward for the long-standing, seemingly perpetually stagnant conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Territories. His hopefulness is a small island in a sea of dubiousness, mistrust, and frustration [...]Seeds of Peace is an international summer camp in Maine that brings together youth and adult leaders from areas around the world marred by conflict to learn resolution skills and develop empathy for each other. Over the past 18 years, participants have come from Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Cyprus, South Asia, and the Balkans.

OTISFIELD, MAINE | Charles Summers will meet with campers Thursday to discuss his role as secretary of state and the importance of civic duty. Now in its 19th year, Seeds of Peace is a lakeside camp in Otisfield that brings together teenagers from conflict zones around the world in hopes of helping them move beyond deep-rooted hatreds. Campers this season have included Israelis and Palestinians, as well as others from Egypt, Jordan, India, Pakistan and the U.S.

TweetAlthough they live less than 40 miles from each other, May and Milena would probably not get to hang out together back at home. That's because 18-year-old May is an Israeli living near Tel Aviv, while Milena, who's 16, is a Palestinian from Arab East Jerusalem. Every day this month, however, they're going sailing together off the Maine coast, as a part of a newly-established peace camp for teenagers.