“The whole aim of Kids4Peace has been this education. We want to share hope, share what they believe in, and educate other youth. It’s a train, like passing generations, passing from one generation to another. That’s why we start at a younger age—if you are taught for thirty years that Arabs are dangerous, that Jews are dangerous, it’s really hard to change those ideas. If you start at a younger age, with kids who are still just learning, there’s hope of understanding.”
- Anton – Palestinian-Christian participant, 19 years old
I always tell people I am Christian, but that I am Palestinian as well, and while I support the Palestinian side, I am a peace builder. I always include that last part when I introduce myself, as a big part of my identity. I don’t agree with the fighting—I believe in talking, understanding, and learning from the other side.
Unless we share our sense of hope, our power of hopefulness, no one will know that we have done this work or why we do this. If other people can learn about this, they will be affected, become involved, and we can expand the hope that we create together. Kids4Peace dialogues are mostly about listing and learning new things—for me, I’ve been through these dialogues for years, learning so much from Jewish kids. Everyone teaches everyone—this is very important.
At first, the point of Kids4Peace was to have fun. When I started, I didn’t know that the fun was really learning about the other side. When we played sports, when we hung out, when we played games, we were learning about each other and building bridges. Then, you continue, and you start having less fun, but you become more interested in hearing about other perspectives. You get really interested in the learning part. Every meeting I learned something new. Heard something new. Understood something new.
Now as a leader, I work with Jewish kids, we plan together, work together, and still I am learning. The whole aim of Kids4Peace has been this education. We want to share hope, share what they believe in, and educate other youth. It’s a train, like passing generations, passing from one generation to another. That’s why we start at a younger age—if you are taught for thirty years that Arabs are dangerous, that Jews are dangerous, it’s really hard to change those ideas. If you start at a younger age, with kids who are still just learning, there’s hope of understanding.
I am optimistic because over these years I’ve seen with my own eyes how we’ve grown and changed people, and taught them. I still have hope even with the bad stuff, even with continued conflict, discrimination, and hurt—I really believe hope is expanding between people. We are a small start at Kids4Peace, and I believe that can spread to the rest of Jerusalem, and then to the region, and then beyond to the whole world. I love to meet my peace-mates in other places like America—kids who aren’t Jewish or Muslim, or religious, but who are involved in peace work and are interested in our work here.
Even if the progress is slow—Kids4Peace started with just 14 kids, now we have thousands of kids involved—progress does grow. If I had never been in Kids4Peace, and never had Jewish friends, and started working a job where it was my first time to interact personally with Jews—at this age, 18 years old—it would be so much stress. I wouldn’t know how to talk with them, or interact, because all I would have was what I learned in school, from the media, and from other people who didn’t know better. It prepared me to have interactions, so now I know how to build these bridges.
