Peace Camp Scholarships for Refugee Kids

Through a partnership with TASSC, the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, LFFP offers free Peace Camp slots to kids whose families have gone through serial hells: first in the country they had to escape, then in navigating the immigration maze, and now in adjusting to strange ways in a strange land & trying to find an economic foothold. Most are housed in a single room or crowded in with relatives. They could spend the summer staring at walls with stunned and depressed parents. Instead they're in the sunshine with a unique mixture of kids from the inner city (many of them also on scholarship) and kids from the suburbs and more affluent neighborhoods.

Because LFFP has so many volunteers, and older campers routinely transition through several levels as counselors in training & junior counselors, there will be almost as many staff as campers, and their training will have emphasized relationship skills, empathy, and creating a welcoming, even healing environment. Campers will make friends, eat nourishing food, play cooperative games where everyone wins, and enjoy art, music, drama, healthy exercise, and stories that emphasize peace heroes, relationship skills, cooperation, problem solving, and appreciation for diversity. Parents, meanwhile, will be free to network, look for work, and improve their skills.

LFFP provides much of its programming for free. Camp fees are kept low to make this opportunity available to all, and a large chunk of the budget goes to stipends for youth counselors and junior counselors. This makes outside funding for scholarships absolutely essential.

Funded by Washington, DC (March 2014)