NEW YORK | This year’s annual American Seed Thanksgiving Conference focused on training Seeds with the skills required to facilitate dialogue in their communities. Throughout the two-day conference, attendees learned and practiced the tools and techniques facilitators use to transform conflict.
In addition, five Seeds had an opportunity to stay for continued training on Sunday, November 27, and will later directly apply their skills by facilitating dialogue between American high school students at the Cranbrook Schools’ World Affairs seminar, CultureSpeak, from February 24-25, 2012. Cranbrook is a private preparatory boarding school located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, near Detroit. As part of CultureSpeak, these Seeds will facilitate dialogue on culture, race, religion, and politics.
The annual American Seeds Thanksgiving Retreats began in 2004 when a group of pioneering American Seeds decided to convene a retreat to discuss the American Seed experience and reconnect with their friends from Camp. Since then the retreat has grown to include International Seeds studying in the US, topics that enrich Seeds understanding of the Middle East and South Asia, peace-building, and the creation of a council of American Seeds to plan additional seminars and programming in the US.