Angel Ramirez visited Politics Done Right to announce registration for the Houston Peace & Justice Center summer Peace Camp for area children and school-aged teens.
Angel Ramirez announces Peace Camp
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Summary
Angel Ramírez of the Houston Peace & Justice Center (HPJC) opened registration for five week-long Peace Camps that teach empathy, environmental stewardship, and conflict-resolution to Houston–area youth this summer. The long-running program offers scholarships, fosters inclusion, and centers children’s social-emotional growth.
- Two decades of history: Peace Camp has operated for roughly 20 years under HPJC’s activist umbrella.
- Five sessions in 2025: The first runs June 9–13 at Unity Church for grades 1-6; teen and additional sessions follow in July at Unity Church, Houston Mennonite Church, and Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church.
- Affordable by design: Tuition is $200 for elementary campers and $100 for teens, with full and partial scholarships so no child is turned away.
- Holistic curriculum: Kids learn social-emotional skills, climate responsibility, cultural appreciation, art, music, dance, and service-oriented activism.
- Easy sign-up: Families can register online through hpjc.org and request scholarships on the same form.
Progressives see Peace Camp as a model of community-powered education—one that plants seeds of justice and solidarity in children. At the same time, conservatives spend their energy banning books and defunding public programs.
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Houston’s Peace Camp stands as a quiet yet potent rebuke to an education debate too often dominated by standardized test scores, culture-war panics, and privatization schemes. By centering compassion, ecological stewardship, and intercultural understanding, the Houston Peace & Justice Center (HPJC) shows what grassroots, community-led pedagogy can accomplish when it trusts young people to be ethical actors in shaping a more just world.
A community legacy of peace education
The camp’s origins trace back nearly two decades to a circle of retired educators who believed Houston’s children deserved more than rote instruction. Their intuition aligns with findings that education for peace and human rights fosters safer learning environments and promotes democratic citizenship, goals outlined in UNESCO’s Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development. HPJC operationalizes that global framework locally, transforming church basements and fellowship halls into laboratories of empathy each summer.
Curriculum that heals and empowers
Peace Camp’s syllabus—mindfulness circles, cooperative games, environmental projects, and multicultural arts—aligns with what researchers call social-emotional learning (SEL). A landmark meta-analysis of 213 SEL programs involving more than 270,000 students found an average 11-percentile-point gain in academic achievement alongside declines in disruptive behavior. In other words, nurturing children’s emotional literacy is not a diversion from academics; it is an evidence-based accelerator. At a moment when right-wing politicians smear SEL as “woke indoctrination,” Peace Camp doubles down on the truth: teaching kids to manage emotions and respect differences builds resilient classrooms and communities.
Accessibility as a justice imperative
Progressive education cannot remain the privilege of children with disposable income. HPJC, therefore, sets tuition at $200 for elementary campers and $100 for teens, and actively fundraises to ensure that scholarships meet the needs of those in need. Houston’s widening wealth gap makes that sliding-scale approach critical; nearly one in five Houston children lives in poverty. By refusing to price out working-class families, Peace Camp resists the market logic that increasingly infiltrates public schooling through charter expansion and voucher schemes.
Cultivating tomorrow’s organizers today
Every craft project and dance lesson ultimately orients campers toward civic action. Ramírez stresses conflict-resolution workshops and service projects that place young people in the role of community problem-solvers. That pedagogy echoes Ella Baker’s ethos: strong people don’t need strong leaders; they become them. In a state where officials ban books about civil-rights icons and muzzle discussions of systemic racism, Peace Camp equips children with the vocabulary of justice before reactionary laws can shrink their imaginations.
Intersectionality in practice—not theory alone
The camp’s schedule reflects Houston’s mosaic: sessions rotate among Unity Church, Houston Mennonite Church, and Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church, emphasizing interfaith solidarity over sectarian division. Campers learn that diversity is not a slogan but a lived experience—one that demands humility, curiosity, and joyful celebration of difference. That experiential learning pre-empts prejudice more effectively than any punitive discipline code.
Scaling hope against the politics of fear
Critics will ask: Can a week-long camp change the arc of a child’s life? Evidence says yes—universal SEL programs generate lasting reductions in aggression and improvements in mental health years later. More importantly, Peace Camp intervenes in a culture that normalizes zero-tolerance policing in schools, rampant gun violence, and the demonization of refugees. By modeling cooperation and mutual aid, the program whispers an alternative narrative into young ears: society thrives when it centers people over profit, inclusion over exclusion.
Conclusion
Angel Ramírez’s announcement is more than a calendar notice; it is an invitation to Houstonians to invest in the moral architecture of the next generation. Progressive movements hinge on ordinary people organizing where they live, and Peace Camp exemplifies that ethic—building justice, song by song and seedling by seedling, long before legislators catch up. Families who enroll their children are not merely signing up for a summer activity; they are voting with their dollars and their trust for a future where compassion, not competition, sets the curriculum.
