The delegates call it Camp Raccoonooga.
Deep in the woodlands of Southeast Tennessee, at an unpublicized location populated mostly by raccoons, representatives of 16 nations are quietly meeting this month on a mission to advance world peace.
Meanwhile, 16 small cells have gathered in other cities around the world as part of the same movement.
If all this sounds rather clandestine, it's not. The delegates to Camp Racoonooga are 17- and 18- year-olds, many of whom have been traveling to these summer summits since before they hit puberty.
Call it flip-flop diplomacy.
They gather under the banner of CISV, a 65-year-old, peace-promoting organization formerly known as Children's International Summer Villages. Kids as young as 11 participate worldwide, although the students here are much higher up the age ladder. Conceived during the Cold War, CISV is well-suited for today's globally minded kids for whom social media and easy access to travel have made the world a smaller place.
Mark KennedyThe three-week CISV Summer Seminar here uses the Noah's ark recruiting model, with two teen delegates from most of the participating countries, including Israel, Brazil, France, Norway, Germany, Canada and the United States, among others.
The teens are supervised by adult volunteers but they script their own camp activities, cook their own food, clean their own rooms and settle their own disputes. If you're expecting gourmet meals, this is not your camp. An adult volunteer said even Italian kids have been known to burn a pizza.
While the conversation at the CISV Summer Seminar veers to world politics and immigration policy; it's also laced with teen angst and idealism. The broad theme of the seminar is conflict resolution.
On a visit to the camp earlier this week, I sat in on group discussions about the power and perils of labels.
As a fly on the wall, I learned: Spanish boys are mad about blondes. German kids hate being stereotyped as automatons. And Canadians don't like that their country is sometimes perceived as the land of the bland.
Sometimes the stereotypes are more personal.
"At home, I'm labeled as a stupid girl," said a participant from Portugal.
"In my country, it's all about how you dress," said a girl from Italy.
Luis, an 18-year-old from Brazil, told me people assume he plays soccer. "I'm actually not into football," he sighs. (Youth participants are identified by first names only for security reasons.)
During these Socratic discussions, kids raise their hands and shake them like tambourines - a clever bit of sign language that translates to "amen" or "me, too."
The delegates seem to relish being free from homegrown peer pressures.
"People here are more open-minded, more mature," Ludivine, an 18-year-old girl from France, told me. "You're not going to be judged here for what you believe."
Johan Sigholm, a Swiss military officer who is among the adult volunteers at the camp this month, said sometimes it takes years for these youth summits to bear fruit. Often, participants keep in touch and have reunions for decades, he said.
"The main idea is the feeling of 'You are part of something bigger,'" Sigholm said.
John Vanderplough, an adult volunteer from Philadelphia, said his CISV group from the 1960s still has reunions after 40 years.
Meanwhile, the teenagers from around the world talk deep into the Tennessee night about ways to end conflicts and erase national stereotypes.
The hope is these new friendships will prove to be durable, lifetime engagements - a prospect boosted by access to Facebook and Instagram.
And at the end of Camp Raccoonooga, the kids' hugs will represent beginnings, not goodbyes.
To that, I suspect they would all lift their hands and shake them like tambourines.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www. facebook.com/ mkennedycolumnist.