The conference officially started at 5 pm on Friday, August 5. One of the first conference events was a welcoming greeting by a local First Nations elder who symbolically welcomed us onto his beach, using a metaphor for the ocean-front land that had been the holy ground of his fore-fathers. As part of the ceremony a woman was spreading eagle feathers on the crowd, sharing one of the most treasured possessions among native people, a true welcoming gesture.

Other program points of the conference included a sharing of experiences about peace and travel, personal experiences of hosting or being a guest, a very interesting exploration of what it means to be from Canada or the United States, as well as youth perspectives and experiences in Servas. The organization is making a targeted effort to reach out to young people to spread the message of peace through travel to the next generation.

I spent the majority of my time at the conference interviewing individual Servas members and will be completing more indepth interviews with some of these individuals over the next few weeks. I had a chance to spend 2 to 3 hours with 5 different people and I was truly astounded, not only at their travel experience, but at their dedication to this organization and to making a positive contribution to our world in general.

One of the women I talked to, a marathon runner, volunteers by taking a group of blind people out to run on a regular basis. A young volunteer from Argentina is dedicating a huge amount of his personal time and energy to build a no-cost language exchange program for young Servas members in countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, Canada and the United States. Through this initiative young people will have the opportunity to stay with other Servas members free of charge and learn English, Spanish, Portuguese or French at no cost from volunteer teachers who are also Servas members.

Another very energetic Servas member from San Francisco volunteers her time to help the local homeless community and to participate in a variety of peace-building initiatives. I also talked to a nice couple from New Jersey, both teachers, who spread the message of peace to an audience of young people and they are also involved in the Sierra Club, to help save our environment. Another interesting person I talked to is a diversity consultant and she helps organizations develop the necessary sensitivities for working with a multi-cultural workforce.