on September 4, 2010, 86 Seeds held a joint holiday dinner in Jerusalem. Israeli and Palestinian Seeds from Camp 2010 reunited for a joint Ramadan Iftar/Rosh Hashanah dinner overlooking the Old City. After a presentation on Jerusalem, older Seeds led small discussion circles before the group sat down to break the Ramadan fast.

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!

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.

Many warm embraces were shared over pizza and soda. We were especially excited to be joined by a group of young leaders from Brooklyn, from the documentary project Breaking the Surface, which connects teenagers from struggling communities in Brooklyn, New York, and here in Bethlehem. They were a great group, and the Seeds were very excited to meet them.

After we got a chance to catch up with each other, we launched right into our programming for the day: we began with a fun creativity activity which had the students working against the clock to produce a performance utilizing three different art forms which explored the idea “My Voice in My World.”

The results were impressive, entertaining, and inspiring!

Afterwards we moved over to a nearby park for a very powerful activity called “Step In, Step Out.” In the activity, the group forms a circle, and a series of statements are read by the moderator. If someone feels that the statement applies to them, he or she steps into the circle. This got us all thinking deeply and personally about political, racial, and socioeconomic issues.

Afterwards we took time to discuss which statements were most powerful for the Seeds. Many expressed how surprised they were to step in for a statement which they assumed would apply only to their side of the conflict, only to find many people from the other side standing in the circle as well.

We finished the day by preparing for our special activity projects through an activity called “Framing the Issue.” This asked Seeds identify the issue in their communities that they are most passionate about, got them to choose an audience which they felt needed to be told about this issue, and then helped them figure out how to present this issue to their audience in the most effective way possible.

By the end of the day, the campers were very excited to get started on their projects. Just like the end of Camp, it took a great effort to separate all the old friends so that everyone could make it on time to their buses.

We can’t wait to see everyone again at our next binational in August!

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.

The day was focused on evaluating different types of leadership. We started off by hiking down to a beautiful spring, but with a twist. We split into three groups that each made its way down the hill under a different style of leadership: one group was led as a dictatorship, one group was run as a complete democracy where every tiny decision was put to a group vote, and the last was run with no formal leadership at all. When the last group made it down to the spring (finally) we had a great conversation about the effectiveness and appropriateness of each of these styles.

For the rest of the afternoon, we ran several other group initiatives, and had some very insightful discussions about how they could become stronger leaders within Seeds of Peace and within their communities. We also worked on developing skills that they can use to facilitate group discussions and activities.

We will be calling on the PLs to use these skills to help us run events throughout the rest of the summer. We were incredibly impressed by this group, and we can’t wait to work with them again at out Special Activity launch event this Sunday!

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.

The party was a double treat for us. First, we had four American Seeds over for dinner. They have been on an educational tour of Israel and the West Bank for the past week, and they had a lot to tell us about their travels.

After the Americans left to go catch their plane home, we were joined by bunch of Seeds from Jerusalem. Everyone packed into our apartment. We were up well past our bedtimes as the game went to extra time, closing with an incredible last-minute goal by Spain.

The night was capped off with a birthday celebration for Kaela, complete with delicious cake, Kaela being lifted on a chair, and the traditional Camp song “Skip around the room!”

Events like these help keep the Seeds of Peace community strong. The Seeds support each other and help each other process the stresses of growing up in this region. In addition to our educational outings and leadership opportunities, we hope to hold many more informal meetings like this throughout the summer.

The documentary tells the story of Ayed Morrar and his 15-year old daughter Iltezam, who unite Palestinian factions and Israelis together in a non-violent protest to save their olive groves from destruction by the Separation Barrier.

We were honored to watch the premiere with Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, and to have the chance to meet the cast, director Julia Bacha, and producers Rula Salameh and Ronit Avni for a Q&A session!

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.

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.
 

The Seeds tried to explain the difference for them between programs at Camp and those in the Middle East. They emphasized the importance of dialogue, but expressed the emotional difficulties of attending binational seminars right after a violent political crisis.

We discussed the concept of “normalization,” and tried to break down the traditional definition to see how it applies to Seeds from the Palestinian delegation.

When we introduced our Summer Special Activities, we emphasized that the different media we’re working with (photography, film, journalism, creative arts) can allow us to share the stories that are taking place in our communities and can be used as a starting point for productive and meaningful dialogue about these issues.

We’re really looking forward to working with the Seeds in Jenin on these projects!

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.

In this meeting, like in our meeting in Jerusalem, after we got some feedback from the Seeds about our regional programming, we introduced our first activity for the summer: a “Leadership Scavenger Hunt” which asks the Seeds to go into their community and interview several people who they see as strong leaders. These leaders could be anyone from political or religious leaders to family members or even respected peers. In this activity we hope to get the Seeds to see first-hand the skills and traits that are necessary for good leadership. We will be using these interviews to spark more discussion at our first binational meeting later in the month.

First we asked for feedback about Seeds of Peace’s after-Camp programming in the region. We had an insightful conversation about what the Seeds would like to see more of in the region, and how we could be best of use to them. One of the ideas that came out of this discussion is to have a separate series of programming for Israeli and Palestinian Seeds living in Jerusalem. This idea made great sense to us because of Jerusalem’s central role in the conflict and the relative ease with which Israeli and Palestinian Seeds from Jerusalem can meet up with each other. We are planning to hold our first event in this series sometime next week!

In addition, we introduced a leadership activity that we are calling the “Leadership Scavenger Hunt” and our creative project “Special Activities” that will be the center of our program this summer. We will explain these in tomorrow’s entry …  

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!

We met today with Arab Israeli seeds from Tira and Taybeh to discuss the difficulties that they face in their country and as Seeds. As always, the Seeds are incredibly inspiring and had lots to say. Since they represent a minority within their country, Arab Israelis struggle to define a clear sense of identity. We are committed to supporting them in any way we can, and will work throughout this summer to make sure that their voices are heard strongly alongside the voices of all the other Seeds.

As a special treat, we got to sing with the famous Siwar Mansour! We have been singing that song non-stop ever since!