Our Stories

"One of the indicators of the magic of the day was the joy and connection that participants left with and the choice they all made to spend the evening together rather than..."
 

These are just some life stories of people who, in their youth, believed in the importance of PFP for their formation as leaders of peace. They now inspire other people to form new leadership for a better world, there are many people who are not in these stories but we know who they are and what they’ve done. Well, they may not have had access to much study or college education but they are leaders in their homes and pass those values on to their children and others in the community and that's the success of Play for Peace that we wanted to see 25 years ago.

"Thus, I started my journey with PFP and went back to the joy that I experienced through play in my childhood.  After the two days, I felt a deep resonance to the purpose of offering that joy to anyone and /or everyone who was present at the various schools I visited..."

Why do we easily place harsh labels on children when they’re not meeting our expectations? Why do we have such high expectations for them when we haven’t finished figuring out life ourselves? 

Yasmin got the opportunity to sit down with our co-founder, Craig Dobkin. I wanted to learn more about her encounter with him because I believe that these moments where one generation bonds and teaches the other are beyond sacred. Here’s her account...

The video is of one of our facilitators arriving at home and a group of neighborhood kids greeting her with the PFP opening. Only one of those kids was in our play session the week before. They taught the opening to the other kids and they all now wait for her to arrive in the afternoon to do this with her. Such a great ripple effect! The best thing I've seen in a long time....

The Play for Peace group went to one of the centers to meet the Ukrainian children. In the beginning, the biggest challenge was communication as almost none of us spoke any Russian or Ukrainian. But then the game magic began to work...

"I saw a tweet recently about how children are an oppressed class and we often treat them as one. I felt that. We try to project our unfilled dreams and expectations on them while forgetting they’re also trying to figure this ‘life thing’ out as well -  but at a much slower pace. It is tantamount we are kind to them, in words, actions and expectations..."

"Others were blown away by what they learned and many were extremely grateful to be apart of the project..."

On day five, I saw the last session and the participants read out what they understood their duties and rights were. No document was introduced to them. The detailing of the right to life included joy, food, sleep, love, and respect. In a way, the kids included The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) without having been introduced to these documents!