Peace is a skill that can be learned. This is one of the take-home messages from the Little Friends for Peace Camp held at Greenbelt Community Church, United Church of Christ, during the week of July 24. Camp counselors worked with 36 students, ages 5 to 14, from Greenbelt and Lanham. Each day of camp starts with an opening gathering, where campers learn a new code word such as care, share, cooperate, shine and celebrate. Then the groups, separated by ages, move through art projects, musical explorations, yoga and cooperative games.
The activities offer concrete examples of the somewhat generic code words. For example, the word peace comes with an activity called the peace post office where campers make personal notes that they put into each other’s mailbox. “We model how to affirm someone,” said MJ Park, who runs the camps with her husband, Jerry Park.
The Parks have run the camps for 44 years, though not always in Maryland. “Little Friends for Peace was started in Minnesota,” MJ said. “It was an outgrowth of my background as a teacher and Jerry being a community organizer and also working in the field of education empowering youth.” MJ said that while at an antiviolence rally, she and her husband suddenly understood. “We had a kind of epiphany that if we want peace, we need to intentionally teach peace.”
They set about creating a curriculum that would provide a set of tools for everyday life. They have worked in Maryland for 31 years, and now live in Accokeek.
The third day is cooperate, where campers learn that, in order to solve a conflict, they need to work together and that conflicts are not bad. “They’re an opportunity for a relationship,” MJ said. The camp has a peace table with a peace pole in the middle where children learn to talk with each other. The code word cooperate takes on a completely new level of meaning for the games run by Jerry. “In cooperative games we take competitive games that kids are very familiar with, like musical chairs or dodgeball, and we change the rules so that it’s not a win-lose game. It’s a win-win,” he said. “With cooperative musical chairs, when the music stops and you don’t have a chair, you’re not out. You’re in somebody else’s, sharing the chair, and the chairs become a lifeboat or the whole team saves the whole team.” The kids run around, have fun and learn about promoting everyone winning. Nevertheless, there are inevitable conflicts. In fact, conflicts are part of the curriculum, and are part of the day of cooperation.
Other new themes this year included presentations on caring for and protecting the Earth and how a plant-based diet might be good for one, the environment and the world. Greenbelters Geraldine Adams (Food for Life instructor), Lore Rosenthal, Alex Barnes and Patience Robbins offered presentations or support throughout the week. On Friday afternoon, Peace Camp ended with a presentation for parents and friends. The campers sang songs, shared memories of the past week and what they learned about peace.
For more information about bringing Peace Education to your school or community, or to order the book, tool cards and shirts, visit Lffp.org. Camps are now located in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
Amy Hansen, MJ Park and Patience Robbins contributed to this article.