When your child goes to camp and is asked the question: “would you like to bunk with an international camper?”  Seize the opportunity, and say “yes!”

My daughter was fortunate to enjoy many different camp experiences: creating art at an arts camp in Maine, cycling through Italy, honing her French language skills through immersion, learning to sail and navigate a 50 foot sailboat, and pre-college enrichment at an art school in Boston.   Whatever the program, she always enjoyed meeting and becoming friends with campers from different countries and cultures.

I urge you to encourage your child to bunk with international campers if possible.  The world is becoming smaller and more interconnected.  Through knowledge and active engagement with people from diverse backgrounds and traditions, our children will learn tolerance and compassion.  The global connections that are made at camp with friends from around the world will help to promote respect and curiosity of different cultures.

My daughter is now in college, and has many friends from foreign countries.  She feels very comfortable being with international students. I believe that Anna’s openness to different cultures was fostered early in life, at camp perhaps, when she bunked, camped, or lived in a dorm with international peers.  We strive for world peace, perhaps we can achieve it one global citizen at a time…one camper at a time, and at the same time help prepare our children for a promising future.