Woodside School District

 

Hosting International Teens Building Peace: 2 weeks in July

 

Creating Friendships for Peace (CFP) seeks one family to host a pair of teen boys on a peacebuilding mission for the last 11-14 days in July. Cypriot teens will be coming to our area with the mission of building friendships with teens from the "other side" of the conflicts in their homeland. CFP volunteers have over 30 years of experience helping teens and their families form wonderful, lifelong bonds. There is one hosting opportunity remaining: A pair of Cypriot boys: approximately July 16-31.

The main requirements of the hosts are:

·       Provide one bedroom for the pair of teens to share

·       Provide meals not provided by group CFP events/activities

·       Provide adequate supervision to keep the teens safe

·       Model neutrality to the conflict where the teens live

·       Ensure the teens attend required CFP group activities (2 per week)

 

There is great flexibility in hosting —to spend more time with “your teens” or for them to spend more time bonding with other CFP teens. Your needs will be deeply respected in order to make hosting meaningful, heartwarming and fun. 

 

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Brief Overview — For 30 years, volunteers from CFP, Creating Friendships for Peace, have brought teens from areas divided by conflict to the US during July in order to help them build friendships with their “enemies” in the long term interest of peace. This program began in Northern Ireland (during the bombings) and lasted for 20 years. Following that, Cypriots asked these volunteers to bring the program to Cyprus where it is in its 11th year. Last year, CFP also hosted teens from Israel and Palestine. 

In 2015, Becky and her husband Brad helped CFP find hosts for these teens in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wonderful hosts helped these teens to form lifelong friendships with their former enemies, and these friendships have spread to their families and communities.

Extraordinarily strong friendships are also built between the teens and their American hosts. The Bay Area is well suited to this peacebuilding effort—among many learnings, teens witness how diverse nationalities, ethnicities, races, cultures, and religions can live together without a dividing, patrolled border, and they learn the values/skills of conflict resolution, forgiveness, differing perspectives, environmental preservation, and community service. Teens are stunned that American hosts care and want to help them build long term peace.

In July, we seek hosts for 6 pairs of teens—each pair to include a teen from each side of a conflict.  All but one hosting opportunities are filled.

 

Please connect with Wendie Lash or Becky Stirn at your earliest convenience if you are interested in hosting this pair of teen boys.

The CFP website is https://friendships4peace.org/. 

Thank you from all of us at the Friendships For Peace San Francisco Bay Area Team.