The PeaceCamp Initiative Announces 2016 Delegates

Soliman, Bashar, Budo for Peace COO Robeen Arkia, Shade, Omer, and Budo for Peace Founder Danny Hakim

Soliman, Bashar, Budo for Peace COO Robeen Arkia, Shade, Omer, and Budo for Peace Founder Danny Hakim

Thanks in part to the generous donation from the Small Business Council of America, The PeaceCamp Initiative will be offering tuition and travel to four delegates for 2016. All four are lining up their visa interview dates and getting ready for a summer of a lifetime. Look to this page for lots of pictures starting in July.

Official Press Release - 2016 SBCA Humanitarian of the Year Award

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Matt Kadish, SBCA CEO (left), Robert Kent (center), and SBCA Director, Neil Carrey (right)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 16, 2016

           

Small Business Council of America Honors

Robert Kent as its Humanitarian of the Year

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 16, 2016) – The Small Business Council of America (SBCA), a national nonprofit organization which represents the interests of more than 20,000 privately-held and family-owned organizations on Federal tax, employee benefit and health care matters, presented its 33rd Annual Congressional Awards at a reception in Washington, D.C. on May 4, 2016.

The SBCA's Humanitarian of the Year Award was presented to Robert Kent of Rockville, Maryland, in recognition of his work as the founder of The PeaceCamp Initiative. The PeaceCamp Initiative works to build bonds and foster friendships between Jewish and Arab youth by bringing them together and sponsoring their attendance at Camp Susquehannock and teaching them peaceful conflict resolution through the practice of Aikido.

The award was presented by SBCA CEO, Matt Kadish. “In addition to being a hard-working and successful small business owner with Temple Allen Industries, Rob works tirelessly to promote and embody the true spirit of Aikido and the nonviolent resolution of conflict,” said Mr. Kadish. “While many can ‘talk the talk,’ Rob actually walks the walk - he selflessly gives of his time and expertise each year to promote peace in the Middle East via the PeaceCamp Initiative. His vision and passion inspire all who know him to go beyond their own personal and geographic boundaries, and to bring about the change they want in the world. We are truly honored to present this award to him in Washington D.C., and we encourage everyone to learn more and to find out how they can help support this worthy cause.”

Robert Kent explained: “While ISIS is attracting all the headlines recently, we have lived for many years in a world where resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestine is to attack the root cause and the rallying cry of global terrorism. Many, embittered by years of conflict, see this resolution as impossible, claiming that Israel and Palestine can have no peace until they both have leaders capable of guiding their people across the chasm of violence, politics, and rhetoric that divides them – and no such leaders now exist.”

“Which is why”, Kent continues, “it is so important that we start creating them.”

Thanks to the generous contributions of the SBCA, SBCA Director, Neil Carrey, and his wife, Karen Carrey, and many SBCA members, the SBCA through the Chris Carrey Charitable Foundation presented to Robert Kent a significant contribution for the PeaceCamp Initiative.  

More information on the PeaceCamp Initiative may be found at:

http://www.peacecampinitiative.org/

PeaceCamp Initiative founder honored to receive the 2016 Small Business Council of America Humanitarian of the Year Award

It was indeed a fun and rewarding evening. While I believe the greatest reward is still seeing how much each year's PeaceCamp delegates get out of the experience, I have to admit it feels good to get recognized for the work one has done. My comments from the Awards dinner seemed worth sharing:

 

SBCA_Award_2016.jpg

SBCA Humanitarian Award 2016

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We can consider this award a salute to two characteristics of Small Businesses - the autonomy to set your own schedule, and the opportunity to go into business with your friends.

I have been able to nurture this project because my cofounder, and the inventor of the ergonomic aerospace sanding technology we sell, was a camper of mine more years ago than I care to count, and has supported my desire to keep returning to that camp when any normal job would have fired me for taking so much time off in the summer.

While ISIS is attracting all the headlines recently, we have lived for many years in a world where resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestine is to attack the root cause and the rallying cry of global terrorism. Many, embittered by years of conflict, see this resolution as impossible, claiming that Israel and Palestine can have no peace until they both have leaders capable of guiding their people across the chasm of violence, politics, and rhetoric that divides them, and no such leaders now exist.

Which is why it is so important that we start creating them.

The PeaceCamp Initiative was founded with the conviction that lasting peace requires men and women who can bridge a history and habit of bitterness with bonds of friendship and trust. The program selects Jewish and Arab youth leaders, all of them participants in Budo for Peace, a martial arts organization that gives Jewish and Arab students of Karate, Judo, or Aikido the chance to train together in harmony, and brings them to a sports camp in America. The residential summer program at Susquehannock - team and individual sports, with a spring-fed lake clean enough to drink, horseback riding, mountain bike trails, wood shop, craft shop, and a climbing tower - has since 1905 been teaching boys and girls from all over the world tolerance and respect for others, how to deal gracefully with conflict, and a sense of fair play.

In other words, this traditional American summer camp has been teaching, for more than 100 years, exactly the lessons that forging peace requires. The Jewish and Arab youth that the PeaceCamp Initiative brings to America experience a world without bullets or bombs, without panic or pain, without refugees or resentments. They learn to trust and value each other as teammates, as cabin mates, and as friends. They start, most importantly, to outgrow their inherited enmity. 

These young men and women also, in turn, become leaders amongst their peers, and start sowing seeds of peace and tolerance in a land where both are scarce.

Your generous contribution today makes this task a little easier, and helps me spread the idea a little more broadly that peace is possible if we start now. 

As a final thought - as small business owners you have acquired the most important humanitarian tool in existence - you already believe that you can make a difference - and therefore you are already equipped, if you have an idea that might make the world a better place, to start making it happen. In a few years - you could be standing here getting the same encouragement I am enjoying this evening, and you’ll know all the effort was worthwhile. 

Our Beginnings: Ben & Jerry's Peace Pioneer Award

PeaceCamp Initiative Founder Robert Kent was honored to receive Ben & Jerry's 2008 Peace Pioneer Award, which they instituted in conjunction with rolling out the flavor "Imagine Whirled Peace". Among other press we got at the time, we got a great cover story in the local paper. The award - a ginormous cardboard check for $10,000 - was presented by Maggie Gyllenhaal at the Ben & Jerry's in Times Square, and made possible some of our first scholarships,