From left: Gaylon Duke and Zenia Victor, Bali Art Project; Cecile Lipworth, V-Day; Rachel Kaufman and Dottie Indyke, Creativity for Peace. Not pictured: Marv Freedman, The Vietnam Project, and Ali Sharif, Permacultura America Latina.
Turning enemies into friends
RACHEL KAUFMAN AND DOTTIE INDYKE, CREATIVITY FOR PEACE
From an outsider’s view, the summer camp in Glorieta looks like any other: a verdant 40-acre plot of land cupped between mesas; arroyos spilling over with lissome cottonwoods. Vibrant art projects from years past-including stone obelisks wrapped in glass-tile mosaics and flat river rocks flamboyantly painted-dot the fields; prayer flags flap with each gust of wind.
But the lessons learned at the Creativity for Peace camp are altogether another story. Each summer, two groups of 15 Israeli and Palestinian teenage girls come togetherfor three weeks to engage in dialogue, art projects, team-building activities, and, perhaps most important, fun, to break down each girl’s perceptions of one another as “the enemy.”
Founded in 2003 by psychotherapist Rachel Kaufman, the nonprofit gives the girls opportunities they do not have at home: to live a feww eeks away from violence, and to have a safe place where they can openly express to each other their emotions and stories, many of which include tales of the loss of friends or family members as a result of the conflicts between Israel and Palestine.
“It’s easy to make the other person the demon, because both have seen the suffering that has been inflicted by the other side,” says Dottie Indyke, president and acting executive director. “But then, when they’re in a room together, they realize the experience of their pain is so similar to the other person’s pain. Then it becomes about what they have in common.”
Kaufman’s hope is to spark within each girl a realization: “This is what it would be like if there was no war. We would just be sitting here together, sharing lunch. Somewhere that registers with them,” says the 65-year-old peace activist. The friendships don’t end once camp is over. After the girls return home, they reunite within a month, and continue to interact throughout the year, not just with girls from their camp, but also with those who have participated in previous sessions.
The project has begun spiraling outward on its own. “The mothers are nowbegging us, ‘Please, we need a camp, too,’” says Anael Harpaz, director of the program in Israel. “They see such a big change in their children, and they want to support them.” Info: http://creativityforpeace.com — Liz Napieralski
Santa Fean
September 2007
article by Liz Napieralski
photo by Jamey Stillings
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