Peacecamp

Peacecamp


Last year in June for the first time in my life I met kids from completely
different religions and after spending one week with these wonderful
people I knew that I had friends for life that I will never forget. During
that week we sang, danced, played, laughed and cried together. Apart from
all the really fun outdoor activities we also sat down to discuss the Arab
Israeli conflict. During these discussions I as a member of the Austrian
group started to understand complexity of the conflict, what it means to
be free like we Austrians are, what it means to have family members
killed, what it means to be anxious about every Arab looking person, what
it means to be thought of as a potential terrorist, what it means to be an
Arab woman, what it means to spend a week with people you were brought up
to dislike. I learned how important identity can be as I came a lot closer
to finding my own Identity.
For improving the many peace camps to come it would be important to give
the Arab kids more support, from all sides, and maybe the teachers should
keep their own problems more secret. But to be honest it is not necessary
to improve the peace camp because it was just perfect so for the coming
round I hope we get to know the others even better have a lot of fun and
spend lots of time with the Arabs.

Peacecamp 2004/II

We are about to meet again for our second peacecamp-round, this time in Israel.
Before we meet, in would like you to answer the following questions

1. Please describe peacecamp 2004 (Rechberg): what happened there? What did you learn? What did this experience give you?
2. What was missing or lacking in peacecamp 2004 in Rechberg? Please describe what, in your opinion, should have been different and what suggestions you have for a camp like this in the future.
3. We are about to meet now for a second peacecamp-round:
What are your expectations? What do you want to learn/receive there?
4. What will be your personal contribution to this camp?

Please relate to all questions in as much detail as possible.

Evelyn

Peacecamp 2004 was an amazing experience. Great connections have been made between all three groups, and some very strong personal connections were also formed. I learned although getting to know somebody takes a whole lot of time, clicked with that person, and having good times with him, require much much less. I feel this experience made me a more open person, gave me some more confidence, and of course met me with some great people; friends I won’t lose for a long long time to come.

The camp in Rechberg missed just some simple activities, in my opinion. I think there should’ve been more free time, maybe some time for us to individually chose some travel paths closeby to where we were staying, and just walk around those areas. I think there should’ve been some more opportunities to play music, sing, and dance together, all people interested, popular songs and maybe some songs special for each’s culture.

I expect the next gathering to be much fun, just like the last one. I expect a great deal of small activities, if there will be time for them, initiated by the students. I want to learn a lot about the Arab culture. I think I don’t know that much about it, living in Israel. I want to spend as much time as I can with the friends I met through this project. I want to get promisses (from other and from myself) I’ll meet these people again soon.

I don’t know what different contribution I can give to this camp, exept being there and helping out; initiating activities, talking, having laughs, teaching other people and learning from them. Not much to say more here.

Achmad's text:

Yazan's text:

Hadra's text:

1. Peacecamp 2004 was one of the best weeks of my life. In Rechberg, us, the Jewish group together with the Arabs met the austrians and the conections we made were amazing. On the second day I felt as if I already knew them for months. The peacecamp gave me a lot on the personal level.
I met other kids at my age and got to know their different culture, habbits customs.I realized that eventhough we are different in many ways, in the end we are all the same and our conversations were great.
As a part of the program we had many discusions on our identity. I found it very interesting and enjoyed listening to the different opinions of the participents.

2. I feel sorry that the connections between the Arab group to the other groups was not as good, but I believe it was mainly beacause the difficulties of the language and the differences between the cultures.

3. I hope and expect to enjoy the second project just as much as i enjoyed the first one. I hope things will "flow" and that the activities will be interesting. I realy hope we can all implement the main goal of the project because i understood that only by listening to each other we can compromise and make changes.

4. I hope to contribute by taking part in all activities and by expressing my opinions about the different subjects.