Two seventeen-year-old boys, Nir Ayalon and Majdi Hafi, travel ten thousand miles from their home to attend a film camp. Within two weeks, they are inseparable.
What's remarkable about this is that, in their home country, it's highly unlikely that Ayalon, an Israeli, and Hafi, a Palestinian, would ever have become friends. Although they live only a short distance from each other, checkpoints, walls and years of racial enmity separate them.
Last summer a group of twenty Israelis and Palestinians, including Ayalon and Hafi, journeyed from Israel to Vancouver to join nine Canadian youth for a two-week peace and filmmaking program on Galiano Island, north of Victoria.
Peace It Together is organized by the Creative Peace Network, a non-profit organization based in Vancouver. Co-executive directors Reena Lazar, who's Jewish, and Palestinian Adri Hamael joined forces in 2003 to establish this film camp for youth from the Middle East in order to foster a culture of peace and tolerance through dialogue and creativity.
The Creative Peace Network paired up with the Gulf Island Film and Television School (GIFTS) to engage youth in what Lazar describes as a reciprocal process of creativity and conflict resolution. The 29 teenagers first participated in a two day conflict resolution course.
"We learned how to listen. We did these exercises on how to actually listen, not just hear. You actually take in information and think about it before you have your response. We also talked about the importance of our body language," says Chloe Edbrooke, a Canadian participant.
Under the tutelage of GIFTS, the youth created a variety of drama, documentary and animated short films. On the Line , a short docu-drama was inspired by the unlikely friendship between Ayalon and Hafi.
The film chronicles the progression of their relationship from strangers perceiving each other through a prism of deeply embedded stereotypes, to forming a bond built on mutual trust and respect. The film ends with a fantasy scene in which Hafi comes face to face with Ayalon as an Israeli soldier manning a checkpoint. A poignant film, On the Line depicts the contradictory loyalties of nation and humanity.
In another short dramatic film, Caped in Mist , Israeli and Palestinian youth co-exist peacefully in a haven school for children orphaned by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unaware of their past, they live in a culture of unity and teamwork until a shipwrecked teenager arrives and reveals the historical conflicts of their warring nations.
Deciding they need more information to develop an informed view about their history, the youth consult books, but they soon realize that they only need to look at each other's faces for solutions to peace.
They leave the island to share these solutions with the world, avowing "There will be two equal countries in the Middle East. Each country will rule itself and have an independent government." And Jerusalem? "It will be an international city allowing safe access to anyone who wishes to go there."
When you bring together two peoples that believe they are the victims, says Hamael, it becomes challenging because the moment they choose to be victims they lose their power. He says the greatest challenge in creating an atmosphere of trust between the youth was "staying neutral and non partisan."
"We, the organizers come from Palestinian and Israeli backgrounds and we all have our own opinions about the conflict. One of our biggest challenges—and it's a human thing—is to stay objective and stay impartial and to provide a safe environment for these kids. Because if we choose to judge these kids and promote our own agenda we are not providing them with the safety they need."
Lazar says they are now fundraising for several projects, one of which is an educational package designed to promote peace in schools.
"We have a very exciting project where we take the seven short films and turn it into an educational packet along with a workbook that will be useable in schools all over the world, but we are also going to focus specifically on Israeli and Palestinian schools."
But the greatest hurdle the Creative Peace Network faces right now is financial.
"It's been a struggle," says Lazar. "We have a lot of supporters but what we are missing is a few big supporters. We are looking for a break. The one, two, or three that will say we will give you a third of your budget."
Feeds