Reena Lazar

Reena Lazar is the Executive Director and co-Founder of “Peace it Together” a non-profit organization that unites youth from opposing sides of a conflict to engage in meaningful and constructive dialogue while they co-create short films that can be used as peace-building tools throughout the world. For the past seven years, Peace it Together has focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and will be running a dialogue and filmmaking program this summer for twenty University students visiting from Israel and Palestine and ten local BC students.

Born and raised in a Jewish family and community in Montreal, Reena knew little about the realities of those living within the Israeli/Palestinian conflict until taking part in a Compassionate Listening Delegation in 1999 where she heard first-hand many diverse accounts of peoples’ struggles, sorrows, and hopes within the conflict. After this life-transforming experience Reena changed her career focus from International and sustainable urban development (McGill/Columbia University) to the field of conflict resolution and peace work.

After completing advanced training in Compassionate Listening, other conflict resolution courses, and co-facilitating a summer program for Israeli and Palestinian girls in New Mexico, Reena envisioned a Canadian program that would bring together youth from a conflict region to create understanding and work towards creative solutions for ending the conflict. It was in this context that Reena met Palestinian Adri Hamael and discovered their similar objectives to create understanding between people impacted by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Reena and Adri later founded the Peace it Together Society to empowers youth to build peace through dialogue, filmmaking and multimedia.