Teens and young adults from areas of conflict were in the Monadnock Region this week, learning leadership skills they’ll take back to their home countries.
Members of Friends Forever International hiked Mount Monadnock, attended lectures, and spent the day at Plowshare Farm, an integrated community for people with developmental disabilities in Greenfield, while forging friendships with members of communities they rarely interact with at home.
Christine Robidoux of Temple and Balmeet Khalsa of Dublin have been assisting in setting up a new chapter of Friends Forever International – this one in Cyprus, where the Turkish and Greek communities are divided by a buffer zone.
Robidoux and Khalsa have been involved in the Cyprus Friendship program in previous years, a program which hosts teens from the Turkish and Greek sides of the island together. They were interested in Friend Forever International program because it requires a year-long commitment from its participants, which includes planning and putting into action a community service program when they return to their home countries.
The program puts 10 teens, five from each side of a conflict, and has them build a team in their home country, before traveling outside of their area to spend time living in a house together and building leadership skills. They then return to their country to implement a service program that served both sides of the conflict, through projects like providing childcare, beach and park cleanups, creating theater together, or working with suicide prevention.
“It keeps them engaged in the process,” Robidoux said.
Robidoux and Khalsa flew to Cyprus to help interview leadership candidates to start the program there.
Diamando Zisimopounou and Victoria Partakki, both of Cyprus, have been in the training to take those leadership roles, and have been in the Monadnock Region the past week, working with teens from Palestine and Israel.
“You can see the impact,” Zisimopounou said. “At first, they are shy, they don’t integrate. It’s amazing to see them through the breakthroughs they have.”
Zisimopounou said she will complete her training as a facilitator this summer, and will return to Cyprus to start selecting participants this fall to participate in next summer’s program.