Friends Forever empowers local communities abroad and in the US to participate in the international peace process by recruiting groups of cross-community youth from "troubled" global hotspots currently Northern Ireland (Protestant/Catholic) and Jerusalem (Jewish/Arab Christian & Muslim) and matching them up with communities here in the US for two week intense engagements. These 2 weeks lay the foundation for a yearlong program of peace for the teenagers involved and a lifelong commitment to understanding and world peace from the citizens here in the States.