Teaching children 'Where Peace Lives'
Murals introduce youths to conflict resolution skills
BY SHARON LEFF Staff Writer
Donna Clapp wants to educate young people about how to handle struggles in their lives by using art and media.

From top: A student paints "We Can All Be Peacemakers" at Conerly Road School in Somerset, which exchanged a panel with a school in Egypt. Muslim teens at the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson paint their mural to be shared with teens in Costa Rica. Students at a high school in Costa Rica work on their mural panel which will travel to the U. S. in 2009.

That's why she and her husband, Jeff Clapp, started Where Peace Lives out of their Red Bank home. The non-for-profit organization teaches children and teenagers conflict resolution.

To do that, Clapp, the executive director, has developed an international peace mural exchange project.

Schools across the world have taken part in the six- to eight-week program, and Clapp said she hopes to bring the project to the Red Bank Primary School on River Street because in part that's where the idea for Where Peace Lives began.

She said that a few years ago her husband did a mural project about community at the school.

"It was born at Red Bank Primary [School], and we're excited at the chance to go back and do the peace program with them," she said.

She said the idea for Where Peace Lives started in 2004 with her husband as well as Jeff Rudy, who serves as development chairman.

"We knew we wanted to do a nonprofit that had something to with peace and children, but we didn't know exactly what we were going to do," she said. "After a year's time, we developed what we wanted to do."

Clapp said the project starts with an activity manual geared toward children 8 to 13 years old or to teenagers. Each manual includes about 15 to 16 activities. Clapp said schools don't always complete the entire manual but instead pick and choose what works best for them.

"Each one of the activities in the manual teaches them about conflict resolution, and each activity is also an art project typically," she said.

She said that while the manuals are age sensitive, they both start with the same activity.

"The first activity in both activity manuals … is called 'What's peaceful to me and what's not?' It's just drawing a distinction between what you do when you're upset about something," Clapp said.

She said the activity allows the children to distinguish what peace is on the global level, or especially for the younger children, what peace is on a more personal level.

Clapp said the art portion of the activity is a collage.

"The first five activities in the manual [are about] peace at the level of self, how you create peace with yourself.

"Next is peace at the level of peace with yourself and others, peace at the level of group.

"Last is peace of the level of world or society, that section is who are the peacemakers in your society," Clapp said.

She said the final stage involves analyzing their culture, which could possibly include their religious background or members of their family.

Clapp said the end result is having the children paint two 4-by-8- foot canvases with a mural that includes their vision of peace. The groups typically include about 25 students.

Top left: A student at West Orange High School talks about the mural he and the art club created. The mural will travel as a message of peace to Ghana, West Africa. Top right: Students and parents design images for a peace mural at an evening workshop.

The Where Peace Lives vision is to "create a culture of peace where our future leadership experiences the joy and fulfillment of making powerful contributions to themselves, their community, and the world," the Web site states.

It states that the core values for the nonprofit include integrity, inspiration, respect and communication.

Where Peace Lives has already conducted mural exchanges with Communications High School in Wall, West Orange High School, and Conerly Road Elementary

School in Somerset. The organization has also done exchanges abroad, including a high school in Peru and Egypt.

The organization is waiting to do exchanges with elementary and high schools in San Jose; Costa Rica; Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y.; and a school in Nova Scotia.

Clapp said she wants students who participate in the Peace program to come away with effective tools for conflict resolution.

"[That's] the one thing that's not really taught [to students]," Clapp said.

She said so far about 1,000 students across the world have taken part in the program.

Clapp said the program has taken off through word of mouth. On Sept. 20, the organization held a fundraiser at the United Methodist Church, 247 Broad St. The event was a wellness fair that included massage therapy, facials, reflexology, raw foods and other attractions.

For more information about the program, visit http://wherepeacelives.org.