Give Peace a Chance

The Peace Center summer camp helps foster emotional growth so kids can resolve differences.

By: Daniel Shearer

   The activity sends a simple message, illustrating an idea that’s forgotten much too often.
   One child holds the end of a multi-colored ball of yarn and throws the ball to another child across the room, who catches it and tosses it to someone else. Along the way, each participant stops briefly to mention a good quality they see in the person who catches the ball.
   Within minutes, the room is crisscrossed with a physical representation that we are all are connected in the web of life. Aside from verbal interaction, if one person tugs on the string, everyone feels it.
   With the web completed, instructors cut the yarn and distribute a piece to each participant, which they tie on their wrists or ankles. The different colors of the string represent the many faces of humanity.

At Peace Camp, hosted by the Peace Center, campers get in touch with their emotions using cooperative games and experiential activities.
At right, from left, Langhorne resident Neena Jokie, Morrisville resident Kyle Burger, Yardley resident Taylor Caligaris and Tyler Burger.
Below, Newtown resident Jeanine Alesandro shows a friendly greeting at last year’s Peace Camp.

   "We use a lot of visuals," says Bensalem, Pa., resident Holly Williams, co-director of Peace Camp ’03, a two-week day camp for first- through sixth-grade students held at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pa., July 28 through Aug. 8.
   "Anything that we teach, we do some kind of activity or project so they can take something away with them," Ms. Williams says. "There’s really no lecturing going on. It’s just a lot of interaction, a lot of cooperative games and experiential activities."
   Peace Camp, now in its seventh year, is the brainchild of the Peace Center, a non-profit educational organization that makes its home in the Richardson House, a historic whitewashed building on Maple Avenue in Langhorne, Pa. Founded in 1982 as the Bucks Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament, the group changed its name and mission in the early ’90s, redirecting its efforts toward school and community programs addressing bullying prevention, peaceful parenting, anger management, peer mediation and general conflict resolution.
   "One of our main goals is to create physical and emotional safety," says Mount Laurel resident Stephanie Pelly, who shares duty as Peace Camp director with Ms. Williams. She earned a degree in elementary education before deciding she wanted to "teach peace."
   "It’s teaching children, as well as adults, to be responsible and to stop and think about their words and actions, and how it affects other people," Ms. Pelly says.
   Each day at Peace Camp begins with a "check-in," in which campers talk about how they feel and engage in discussions intended to foster emotional examination.
   "The point of the check-in is to get kids to identify their feelings," Ms. Williams says. "There are plenty of adults who don’t know how to identify what they’re feeling, and when we don’t know how to do that, then we just react."
   The activity stems from the belief that misunderstood feelings form a self-perpetuating cycle that leads to greater misunderstanding, even violence, according to Peace Center Program Director Chris Porter.
   "One of the phrases that we use as a kind of guiding principal in the work that we do is ‘hurt people hurt people,’" Mr. Porter says. "A lot of the research, especially when you look at incidents like what happened at Columbine High School, suggests that this was the result of years of abuse, of public humiliation, that was heaped on these two individuals, and it eventually erupted into an extreme act of violence. A big goal of ours is to address these kinds of behaviors up front."
   Peace Camp uses a variety of small and large group activities, art projects and cooperative games designed to teach campers to respect themselves and others. One activity, called the trust walk, takes place on a hop-scotch-like diagram, in which blindfolded campers progress using verbal cues from partners.
   "It’s about getting kids to work with people they perhaps wouldn’t normally work with," Ms. Williams says. "We’re not anti-competition, but we really do structure our activities around working together.
   "The interest has really grown. Last year we had 45 students. We get kids that continue to come back. Some have actually gone on to become camp counselors."
   Ms. Williams and Mr. Porter both have graduate degrees in dispute resolution, while other Peace Center trainers have degrees in education and psychology. Several Peace Center staff members found a calling to the work in 2001, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
   This summer will mark the first Peace Camp sessions held at Bucks County Community College, which will handle camp registration. In addition to Ms. Williams and Ms. Pelly, several teen-age camp counselors, veterans of previous Peace Camps, and a number of parental volunteers will help run the program.

   The Peace Center also is planning its first teen camp, Get R.E.A.L. — an acronym for response-ability, empowerment, attitude and leadership — which will explore Sean Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, along with goal setting, communication skills and team-building activities.
   "It’s a place to get together and learn ways to create boundaries, create personal standards, a lot of things that I think fundamentally, as kids, we didn’t learn in school," says Yardley resident Tara Bowling, a Peace Center trainer and success coach who will work with the Get R.E.A.L. camp. "They’re so critical and such an important element in making your life successful. But it’s great to be a part of a cause, because basically, we need more peace in the world."
Peace Camp 2003 takes place at Bucks County Community College, 275 Swamp Road, Newtown, Pa., July 28-Aug. 8, 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., with two sections, first through third grade and fourth through sixth grade. Tuition costs $299. Enrollment: 25 campers in each age group. More than 60 programs in acting, art, cooking, foreign language, math, sports and writing also available as part of the college’s Kids on Campus summer program. To register, call (215) 968-8409. On the Web: www.bucks.edu
Get R.E.A.L. camp, for teens ages 13-17, takes place July 14-18, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuition cost $75. Location to be announced. For information, visit the Peace Center, 102 W. Maple Ave., Langhorne, Pa., or call (215) 750-7220. Email: [email protected]