Youth Presents: This is how to make peace

Voiceover:  Director Rafi Barbiro

Shadi Facher Al-Din (Facilitator & Stage Director)

Melisse Lewine-Boskovich  (Facilitator & Stage Director)

Lea  Mukin  (Jewish participant, dancer)

Makhmud Ibrahim Bishara  (Arab participant, John Smith)

Assil Bishara  (Arab participant,  Pocahontas)

Eitam Megini (Jewish participant, Ratcliff)

Voiceover:   A group of youth from 3 schools in Tira and Kfar Saba are working together these days on a  joint production based on the story of Pocahontas in the  Peace Child Israel project, whose objective is to promoting a peaceful life between Arab and Jewish citizens in Israel using theatre.

Shadi:                    The special thing in these groups of Peace Child is that you deal with people, first of all, on a personal level and then all the aspects related to the Palestinian-Arab-Jewish-Israeli conflict.

Melisse:       We work on this [personal level) very deeply so that the group and the children are able to deal with the more painful issues and still live to tell the tale…

Shadi:          And we do it with “no discounts”, because, in the end they have to put on a play together.

Voiceover:   Just like the choice of the script, the casting doesn’t try to escape the Arab-Jewish conflict and the main roles are divided in such a way that sometimes Pocahontas is a Hebrew-speaker and sometimes an Arabic speaker.

Tal/Lon:                          (In Hebrew):  “We are the strong and brave men of The Virginia Company!”

Makhmud/John Smith:    (In Arabic):  We are the strong and brave men of

                                        The Virginia Company!”

Melisse:       The kids who participate in this project get bashed by their friends, in the same schools where the school principal is 100% behind the program.  But they [their friends] say:  “What are you doing?  You’re dreaming! What?  You’re going to miss dance class because of  Peace Child?!!! “  And it’s really a stigma.

Lea:             Now I really do have a lot of Arab friends and it’s hard for me now when my friends say to me:  “Oy, those Arabs again…”.  I want them to experience it too so they can see what’s happening here so that they each understand it for themselves.

Makhmud:   The kids in Tira don’t know what I see every day [in the program].  They don’t know what I experience and am feeling.  It’s very easy to get close to people – if they want to get to know you.  And the show is just a motif [tool] for the connection between us.

Shadi:                    Bien/Good/next!

Lea:             We have ups and downs in the group but somehow we always get past it, and we never failed on our journey.

Assil:           Sometimes there are conflicts, but we don’t argue too much because we have a common ground between us.  We’re teenagers and we have all the regular things that are common between us.

Eitam:                    I think the cross-section of the people here – the Jewish and the Arabs  is not something objective [broad scope0.  Because we came  with an objective and  because we actually DO want peace, and who care about it, and who want to make this peace…And there are a lot like us [our age] just the opposite who DON’T want  it.  So this doesn’t represent anything [across the board].  And the fact that we are successful, well, I don’t know how much it will affect anything and prove to others that it IS possible.  But it is possible, it’s always possible, and everyone knows it’s possible, they simple don’t want it.