What if back in the 1950s little Georgie Bush and other 11-year-olds destined to become future world leaders all spent a month bunking together, playing games and becoming friends. Would today's world be a different, more peaceful place?

World peace is the ultimate goal of Children's International Summer Villages,  known as CISV, an international organization with 22 chapters in the United States. The local New York chapter includes families from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut and is run by volunteers such as Patty Orsini, an editor and writer who lives in Maplewood. CISV was founded in 1951 by a child psychologist who believed that the way to achieve world peace is through children, and the best route is friendship rather than learning about an abstract place on a map.

A centerpiece of the program is the Village, a month-long camp for about 50 kids, all age 11, from a dozen different nations. This year, the New York chapter will be sending kids to Villages in Lisbon, Portugal, and Seoul, South Korea; these are just two of more than 50 Villages that will be held throughout the world this summer.

"The program starts at age 11 because it is a time when kids are still very open to others, they have very few prejudices," said Orsini. 

Maplewood children in CISV include Nancy Ferranti, who attended a Village in Londrina, Brazil, and remembers playing team-building games like confidently falling into the arms of fellow children, none of whom spoke a common language. "It was really fun and I got to learn so much about other cultures. It made me realize that we could be friends even if we came from totally different places," said Ferranti, now a freshman at Columbia High School.

Last summer, the local chapter hosted a Village in Westchester. Four 11-year-olds from Costa Rica who were attending the camp spent some time at Orsini's home in Maplewood. Said Orsini, "We took them into New York for a day, and went to the Fourth of July fireworks. When I asked them what they would tell their friends in Costa Rica  they liked most about Maplewood, they said the gum wall. (Located under the railroad tracks near Maplewood Middle School, it's where students stick their chewed gum). It made me realize, kids are kids the world over."

Other CISV programs target older children and some are geared toward exploring the diversity within a country's own local chapters. Maplewoodians can get involved in many ways, including offering lodging to visiting children who have traveled here to attend a CISV program.

Orsini said the aim of CISV is to prepare individuals to become active and contributing members of a peaceful global society. The program is designed to stimulate cooperation and leadership, essential skills for building a better, more harmonious world.