"The goal of Play of Peace is to create compassion between people who come from different communities that have a history of conflict.” - Michael Terrien
Michael Terrien is one of the Play For Peace co-founders and currently sits on the Board of Directors. Just before the holidays, he took the time to tell me about the creation of PFP, and why he was so inspired to be involved with the making of it. Talking to Michael is a strikingly pleasant experience: he’s jovial, candid, and curious (ask him about his life, and he reciprocates with an interest in your own). It strikes me that all of these qualities are advantageous in a leadership position, and as I speak with him, I wonder how I might become more like this: energetic, and confident. Thinking more broadly, I suppose that many of my PFP interviews have yielded such impressions. It is, after all, a community of peacemakers. A native of Chicago, Michael has worked in a variety of capacities before and since creating PFP. He holds a certificate in executive education from Harvard Business School, and is a Benedictine Oblate.
Many of his positions have been creative ones: Associate Director of the Outdoors Wisconsin Leadership School, and President of the Geneva Group, Inc. The latter is a business consulting firm dedicated to organizational learning. It was during an adventure exercise with one of these clients that the events leading up to PFP took place. While setting up for an outdoor workshop in Wisconsin, his business colleague Craig Dobkin sustained a serious injury and was left unable to walk. Seeing his friend and colleague hospitalized was a heart-wrenching experience. As Michael reflects: “it makes you ask: what am I doing?" During this time, Michael was working with a woman named Faith Evans: a colleague who shared his humanitarian interests. One day, he telephoned Faith and woke her up from a dream. In it, she’d seen a ball bouncing from the Balkans to Jerusalem. This dream was the premise - a visual symbol, as it were - for what we now call Play For Peace. Michael thought that his colleague in the hospital should also be involved. The three met in Denver, and such was the starting point for PFP.
When asked exactly what PFP is to him, Michael responded at length:
“PFP is the building of a global learning community that can be integrated into the daily lives of people in conflict. Play is the fundamental way that we learn, and we felt that by starting at a young age, we could create positive experiences between people who were taught to hate each other. If the initial focus was on children, the next step was figuring out who would facilitate the children. Teenagers were the natural choice, since they are forming their identity in the world. If they could facilitate the younger kids, and if younger kids think teenagers are cool, then these newfound facilitators are positively affirmed and can grow as peacemakers. The adult coordinators, then, support the teens, and the institutions support the individual communities."Even Michael’s metaphors are playful. Play for Peace is an inter-agency and inter-generational system. “Think of the structure of PFP as the structure of broccoli. You pick it apart and you get more broccoli – so it's reflective of itself, at every level!" The beginnings of PFP were in Chicago and the Middle East, with work being done in Upper Galilee. That was in 1996/7. As we move into a new year, this story can be taken as a kind of parable for moving forward. How can you organize the events of your life into something positive, life-changing, or even just fun?
