Since 2015, we’ve been working with our strategic partners SOAR and IRCO, to connect with refugee families and invite the children to attend our programs. Rotary and other funding organizations sponsor these refugee children to participate in activities like day camps in their communities. This playful interaction is one of the best ways to help immigrant and host-country kids build bridges.

Three small refugee children from Myanmar -- Nee, Mee, and Bae -- just arrived in Portland this summer and were sponsored by Rotary and others to attend a Peace Village camp.

But there was a hitch: They couldn’t speak a word of English.

Enter Seroosh, another refugee child newly arrived from Afghanistan.

“We need a soccer ball,” he said. Wise beyond his years, Seroosh realized that soccer provides a type of communication and fun known and understood around the world.

So we brought in a soccer ball.  And on every break, during lunch, and after camp, all the kids at Peace Village had a great time playing soccer together. 

At the end of camp, each child has an opportunity to give a flower to another child and to tell them what that person meant to them during camp.  When it was Nee’s turn, he picked up a flower, handed it to Seroosh, and said one his very first words in a new language: “Friend.”  

This story is a beautiful example of what can happen at a Peace Village camp when we work together with people from other cultures and reach out to make new friends.