Mission
The Children’s Peace Project enables American churches and schools to work for greater understanding and solidarity with churches and schools in the Holy Land. The hosts invite a small group of Palestinian students and a teacher to reside in the parish or school community—for six to eight weeks if during the school year, or a shorter period if during the summer. The objective of the CPP is to build a bridge of understanding and peace between the Holy Land and the West and between the children of both lands.
Through better understanding of cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, all students recognize that differences do not diminish the dignity of the individual person. Our larger mission is to change the hearts and lives not only of the host families and the children themselves, but of the community as well. Therein lays our hope for true and lasting peace.
Goals
- Build “a living bridge of peace” between communities in the West and communities in the Holy Land through their children.
- Contribute to the preservation of a living Christian presence in the Holy Land.
- Educate Western Christians about the plight of Holy Land Christians and Muslims.
- Learn about our own Christian heritage as it is seen through the lens of the struggles and successes of Holy Land Christians, the descendants of the first people to hear the good news of Jesus in the most ancient of Christian communities.