For the past 14
years, I have been part of Seeds of Peace, an international organization that
brings together young leaders from conflict regions to inspire and equip them
with the relationships, understanding, and skills to advance peace. We were
founded on the belief that peace is personal: Diplomatic processes must be
paired with transformational interactions between people in order for peace on
paper to translate into peace on the ground. We began in 1993 as an experiment. What
if exceptional teenagers from conflict regions had the chance to meet face to
face on neutral ground, engage in open and honest dialogue, and deepen their
understanding of each other’s perspectives on the issues that divide them?
What if they received continued support
and leadership training when they returned home, so that their transformational
experiences could continue and take root in the places where brave leadership
is critical? What if they gained influence in their societies and could help
bring about the political, social, and economic conditions needed for
sustainable peace?
There is no silver bullet for ending
conflict; meaningful change requires people working at all levels to disrupt
the status quo. People-to-people peacebuilding is
slow, hard, and messy, but ,more important, it is also necessary.
What personal transformation looks
like
During my first Seeds of Peace program,
an Israeli teenager in my cabin told me she didn’t think Palestinians
“deserved” a state. She decided it was too hard to pronounce her Palestinian
bunkmate’s name, and called her “girl,” and later, Kelly. She had never
encountered Palestinians her own age; she believed they all wished her dead or
gone.
Yet as the program progressed, she
quickly developed relationships with her Palestinian peers, including a boy
whose cousin had been wounded by an Israeli soldier several months earlier. His
cousin died nearly a week into the program. When she heard the news, she came
to me, crying hysterically. “You don’t understand,” she sobbed. “This isn’t
‘another Palestinian reported dead in the West Bank.’ This is my friend’s
cousin. This is his family.”
She went on to work for an Israeli
organization monitoring human rights in the Palestinian territories and
completed graduate degrees in conflict transformation. She recently wrote to
tell me that she and Kelly were having coffee in Jerusalem and overheard a
young girl telling a friend that she was about to attend a program called Seeds
of Peace. “I told her it was the most incredible summer of my life, and that I
was there with my friend of 13 years,” she wrote.
Emerging as leaders
Case studies of conflict areas, including
Northern Ireland and South Africa, have shown that progress toward peace does
not typically result from one action or initiative; rather it is many
activities on many levels that ultimately bring about change. In each case,
strong leaders working across sectors have helped take incremental steps toward
change even during the most difficult times. Our 5,061 graduates are positioned
to play just that role.
After more than 20 years of planting
“seeds,” our first generation of alumni, now in their mid-30s, are increasingly
gaining influence and emerging as leaders of their societies and leveraging
their positions to transform conflict.
In the Middle East, our graduates are
leading local peacebuilding and
educational nonprofits, starting regional renewable energy companies, and
training youth in social entrepreneurship. They are advising on constitutional
and legislative reform issues in Egypt, shaping the news in Israel and the
Palestinian territories, and developing programs for the economic empowerment
of youth and women in Jordan.
Our graduates in South Asia are working
to improve the status of women at both the policy and grass-roots levels in
Afghanistan, organizing youth camps to encourage critical thinking in Pakistan,
and leading public campaigns to counter gender inequality in India.
Alumni in the United States are
developing technological platforms to connect college students in the US and
Muslim countries, running for office, leading initiatives to encourage empathy
in children, and working for the rights of immigrants and refugees.
Seeds that sprouted
A team of our graduates in Pakistan and
India has set out to change the way that people living in conflict learn
history. During their Seeds of Peace dialogue encounters, they realized that
they were being taught wildly different versions of the same shared historical
events. This inspired them to create a textbook that, for the first time,
juxtaposes their countries’ competing historical narratives. They have since
led workshops for more than 600 Indian and Pakistani students, and their online
curriculum has received more than 1 million views.
Young leaders like these directly link
what they do in their personal and professional lives to their experiences with
Seeds of Peace: engaging with the “Other,” recognizing their leadership
potential, and gaining a commitment to peace at a young age. Now, as adults,
they show us what is possible.
It is because of them that I remain
hopeful.
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