What are we doing, you ask?
The short answer first. We are going to Brazil for 29 days.
The long answer? Well, it starts in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1951. A mom, who just happened to also be a child psychiatrist, was hanging out with her son, when he looked at her and asked, “Mom, why do we have to fight in a war?” * And as she thought about how to answer him (since there is no good answer to that question), an idea began to form in her head. What if we didn’t fight wars any longer? What if she could do something - something with children – to prevent wars in the future?
She believed that if children learned at a young age to understand different cultures, those children would grow up to be adults who could avoid fighting in wars.
And that, my friends, was the beginning of an organization called CISV. 
Dr. Doris Twitchell Allen began sharing her idea, traveling the world, making friends, researching how this organization would work. And a short time later, the first CISV Village was held in Cincinnati.
A Village is a four week residential cultural program that brings together delegations from around the world. Two boys and two girls, age 11, travel with an adult leader to the village, live together with people from all over the world, learn how to communicate, resolve conflict, build consensus, and become friends. So we’ll be living, learning, communicating, resolving and building with our new friends starting on December 27.
* This is only my loose interpretation of actual events.
So why is this blog called “Leaving Footprints”?
