For the first time in its 30-year history, the Seeds of Peace summer camp has been held in the United Kingdom, bringing together teenagers from opposite sides of global conflicts, including Israel and Palestine, and India and Pakistan. The three-week camp, hosted at a boarding school in Tavistock, Devon, concluded with participants describing the experience as challenging but life-changing.
Intensive Dialogue Sessions
Each day, campers aged 14 to 17 spend two hours in facilitated dialogue sessions, sharing personal experiences of pain and trauma. Over the three weeks, this amounts to 32 hours of intensive discussion. Eva Armour, Seeds of Peace executive director, explained the approach: "You won't find them sitting with maps and facts and books. They're talking about their own lived experiences – that's how the learning is happening. You can't debate someone else's lived experience the way that you might debate what happened in the war."
Armour emphasized the simplicity and effectiveness of the model: "It's almost embarrassingly simple how well this model works, but we need to invest in this work even a fraction of what we're investing in the aftermath of war."
First UK Hosting
Founded in 1993 by American journalist John Wallach, the camp usually takes place in the US. However, political uncertainty led organizers to choose the UK as a safer option this year. Qasim Aslam, global youth programme lead, noted the logistical challenges: "Picking a country to host this is one of the enormous challenges. If you pull up a map, there are very few countries where all parents from all eight countries would be comfortable sending their kids, and where we can get visas for all participants."
The campers, known as "seeds," come from eight countries, including the UK. The programme aims to identify future influencers in their communities.
Personal Stories of Transformation
Mika, a 17-year-old from Israel, acknowledged the difficulty of facing perceived enemies: "Facing someone who is supposed to be my enemy, but she's just a girl like me – it's difficult. I could just not know about it and go and have fun in another summer camp and it would be way easier. But I prefer knowing it and starting to work through it for what I believe. If one day maybe I have the power to change something, I don't want to be ignorant. I want to know the pains of everyone."
Hala, a 16-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem, said it was her first time meeting Israelis "outside of checkpoints, raids and IDF uniforms." She admitted, "It was hard at first, I thought I was betraying something deep down inside of me. But when I got to know these people, I realised they have very different views about their government. And we like the same movie. We have so many things in common."
Impact Beyond Conflict Zones
Even participants from outside the main conflict areas found the experience enlightening. Esther, a 17-year-old from Belfast, said, "I have never had the chance to speak to people from different countries like Israel and Palestine before – you never know how the media censors stuff so it's really powerful to hear from people themselves. I feel like I'll be much less quick to judge people now."
The camp also faces challenges, including accessibility and cost. The fee is $9,000 (£6,700), though most attendees receive scholarships. English language skills are required for effective dialogue. Ahmad, a 26-year-old Palestinian camp counsellor and former seed, noted the personal risks: "For some people, it feels like you're betraying your country, because you're trying to make peace with the people who are killing you at the same time. You can't just go home and expect people to understand Seeds of Peace in a second. You need to be here to understand that."
Long-Term Impact and Expansion
Over the past three decades, Seeds of Peace has worked in the Balkans, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Afghanistan, adapting to geopolitical events. Many alumni have become politicians, ambassadors, and business leaders. Joud, a 17-year-old from Jordan attending for the second year, highlighted the camp's impact: "Our social identities are complete opposites. But we connected in many different ways, and I learned how to listen and understand, not just respond."
Armour reflected on the growing need for such dialogue: "It feels like it's getting harder for people to be able to talk to each other across differences. After 7 October [attacks on Israel by Hamas], we actually got a lot of calls from schools and institutions saying we don't really know how to talk to each other about this, can you help?"
