stages  >  The Comedy for Peace^TM educational program

Comedy for Peace^TM will not be a one-shot deal in Israel and Palestine but aims to build local capacity that will use comedy in an ongoing manner to help resolve conflict in cooperation with local government and non-governmental organizations. NGO’s will include Seeds of Peace, CARE and Sabreen and could include other organizations such as The Welfare Association, The Rabin Center or the Peres Center for Peace. 

Comedy for Peace^TM will create teaching tools and lead the first workshops that will be used on a continual basis throughout Israel and Palestine. These programs will be designed to be locally run, managed and self-perpetuating, with the support of international funders. These workshops and classes will teach teenagers how to use comedy to approach the daily struggles of their lives, including the reality of violence. 

These follow-up and ongoing events will allow grassroots local organizations to continue the work that begins with the initial performances.

We also intend to create programs that will bring this educational program into mosques and synagogues in the US and elsewhere, as well as conflict resolution programs and other educational venues.

The goals of these humor workshops and classes will be both theoretical and practical:

• To strengthen the understanding of the power of humor as a positive force to combat hate, bigotry and misunderstanding.
• To help audiences recognize humor as an instrument to that can bring adversaries together.
• To encourage participants to recognize the power of humor and understand how it can be applied in their circumstances and daily working lives.
• To actually work with humor by creating jokes and performing them and becoming skilled in applying measured amounts of humor. For example, participants will be taught how to find humor in even the most difficult parts of one’s life.

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Purim 2004 at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo