Peace Activist Training Program

Through student scholarships, the Abe Keller organization sponsors an intensive four-week Peace Activist Training (PAT) program for local high-school students. Prospective interns each year are interviewed and selected on the basis of several criteria. The training is provided and administered by the Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation (WWFOR), and the students participate in a variety of assignments including soap-box public speaking, street-side surveys, forums, and research. The students are provided with several options for study topics, and they must come to a consensus about which topic they will focus on during the training program.

In 2007, there were six students who participated in PAT, each from a different high school. Based on recent events in Seattle and an informative forum with local law-enforcement personnel, the students chose to focus their efforts on the topic of police brutality. However, in addition to this main area of focus, each student was allowed to pursue their own interests in peace and justice, and these secondary topics ranged from sexual discrimination to military training programs. Two of the students provided an oral recap of their internships during a recent meeting of the Abe Keller fund. The students reported that PAT was a tremendous experience for them, and they learned skills that they will be able to apply in future leadership roles.

An excellent article on the success of the PAT program, based on the 2005 internships, can be found in the WWFOR Pacific Call newsletter for September-October 2005. Refer to the article entitled A Great July for WWFOR Peace Activist Trainees by Ellen Finkelstein, WWFOR Organizer.