US Team

Betsy Small Campbell, M.A., Ed. M. is a graduate of Teachers College, Columbia University, and North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC. Her three decades of work with marginalized populations worldwide as a special educator, violence prevention researcher, and cross-cultural counselor and most recently with immigrant survivors of domestic violence have taught her crucial lessons about connection and listening to each other’s history and pain. She has worked and hosted with CFP for over ten years, leading on site and virtual workshops for teens and their host families. Betsy served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone (1984-1987). She is the former Executive Director of War Child, USA.

Becky Stirn brings to CFP executive business experience and extensive volunteer service. She has served on the Boards of Trustees for educational, environmental, medical and historical preservation institutions. Her career has focused on strategic planning, financial management and marketing for medical device companies as well as consumer retail companies. After senior leadership positions at Collage Aesthetics, CooperVision, CEMAX and running her own consulting practice, she co-founded Aesthetic Sciences Corp. and served on its Board of Directors and as President and CFO. She chaired the Nominating/Governance Committee and served on the Audit and Executive Compensation Committees as a member of the Safeway Board of Directors. Currently, she advises entrepreneurial startups in innovative software fields. In addition to her CFP volunteer roles, she is a member of the board of a local nonprofit and on the Board of Governors at Wilmer Eye Institute (Johns Hopkins). Becky was first introduced to CFP in 2015 by a founder of the Cyprus Friendship Program. Her previous experience as a foreign exchange student through the American Field Service (AFS) and strong interest in peacebuilding through teenagers led her to open the San Francisco Bay Area as a new CFP hosting area. She now also works on strengthening CFP’s alumni program and investigating the role of US teens to aid in the peacebuilding process. Becky is a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business and of Smith College (economics).

In 2001 two Northern Ireland girls, one Catholic and one Protestant, stayed with Tamera’s family and thus began her 20-year journey in youth empowerment with a focus on youth in conflict regions of the world. The young ladies were part of the peace organization, the Children’s Friendship Project for Northern Ireland (CFPNI); they were the first of 51 youth from 9 countries who have stayed with Tamera and her family over the past two decades.

Tamera led an active role with CFPNI through 2007 when she, along with a few dedicated host families and Warren Muir, introduced CFPNI’s program model to associates in Cyprus. The organization was renamed the Cyprus Friendship Program and as its first Executive Director, Tamera led the initial cohort of Cypriot youth who participated in the program. Subsequently, she continued working with youth through Department of State programs for the next 8 years before returning to CFP.

Tamera has collaborated with multiple non-profit youth organizations and has led all-volunteer international teams working with youth in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central Asia, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Finland, Israel, Palestine and the U.S.

A resident of the Washington, D.C. area, Tamera has a MS in Mathematics and is passionate about tutoring high school math students from local schools. Prior to working with international youth, she spent 15 years in the aerospace industry.

Tamera was delighted to return to CFP in 2019 where she is the Middle East Program Coordinator. She is excited to be part of the organization’s future growth in the region and to continue her journey with youth.

Brooke lives in Battle Ground, WA with her husband Derek.  She was born and raised in this area.  They have 2 dogs, 2 goats and a few chickens to round out their family. They are also parents to their 2 adult sons.

Brooke has been involved in managing youth exchange students from various countries. She and Derek have hosted a number of teens and have traveled to visit them all. She is very involved in finding host families for the long-term exchange students and has been family with CFP for quite some time.  She is well known in her community and has jumped in head first into her role.

She is a real estate agent and loves her job as it allows her to meet a lot of new people and help them get settled into their new community.

A native of Pennsylvania, Kim Bell began her career after college with a regional bank in credit and lending, and then as a technical writer and finance officer.  While completing her master’s degree, she then turned toward a career in the United States Air Force.  She began her many assignments as a weather observer, and then as the unit Equal Employment Officer where she trained members and conducted investigations on racial and gender discrimination and sexual harassment.  She then took an assignment at a higher headquarters as the disaster preparedness officer, training members on the use of nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare equipment in global deployed environments.  When 9-11 occurred, the focus of that assignment rapidly evolved into what is now known as Homeland Security.  This long-term assignment had local, state, and national intensity where she developed and handled many different aspects of operations, training, and planning for many homeland contingencies here at home.  Toward the middle-to-end of her career, she went back to school, attending law school at night, graduating cum laude.  Concurrently throughout her career, Kim was asked to be the Transportation Coordinator for a small nonprofit, then known as the Children’s Friendship Project of Northern Ireland in the mid-1990’s.  She has been serving in this position as the nonprofit grew, changed, and evolved into the present Creating Friendships for Peace.  She has been bringing her knowledge of global homeland security, her operations and logistics talent, and her overall leadership experience to our organization for over the past 20 years.

Bo has been with CFP since 2011 as a host parent or area coordinator.  Currently retired from the FAA, I was a journeyman air traffic controller for 25 years. Prior to that I served in the USAF.

I currently work as a part time ESL instructor in Salem, NH. I also work part time as a high school basketball and tennis coach in Amherst,NH where I reside with my wife and son. I am a proud graduate of North Texas University (BA, 1980) and Embry Riddle University (MA 1991).

I have always enjoyed hosting young people from all over the world and my wife and I enjoy getting to know these young people and engaging in cultural exchange. We take great pride in allowing young students to share our home and world with us, exposing them to an objective view of a typical American home and family. CFP, through it’s important work in Cyprus and other locations, has allowed me to continue to meet, host and interact with engaging and stimulating young students. We help shape and understand each others views and perspectives in the world we live.

Celia came to the US at the age of 11 from Harare, Zimbabwe, with her diplomat parents and two sisters. Currently employed as part of the management team of Envoy Air (a regional carrier subsidiary of American Airlines), Celia brings strong administrative and proficient computer skills to CFP, enabling her to fill two volunteer positions. The mother of two sons, she lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband Don.

Sharon has spent most of her adult life in philanthropy, focusing on post-conflict reconciliation and recovery, women’s issues and education. After co-founding and building an award-winning advertising and public relations agency in Virginia, she served for fifteen years as a board member and later Chairman of the Children’s Friendship Project for Northern Ireland. CFPNI brought together over two thousand teenagers from both sides of the cultural divide in a reconciliation leadership program during the closing years of the conflict and the early years after the Belfast peace agreement of 1998. That same year, Sharon served on the organizing committee of the Vital Voices conference in Belfast, promoting women in leadership. She received the U.S. State Department’s Millennium International Volunteer Award for her work in Northern Ireland.

Moving to Los Angeles in 2005, Sharon served for ten years on the governing board of LA’s BEST, an after school program for over 35,000 school children from low income neighborhoods. She co-founded, and led the marketing and brand development of, the annual BritWeek events in Los Angeles, proceeds from which have benefited charities serving children and young people in activities including literature, art, theater, health, sports and computer coding. Sharon received the annual Innovator Award from Big Brothers Big Sisters in 2012 for her imaginative work.

Sharon currently serves as Vice Chairman of the U.S. board of Cinemagic, a Belfast-based organization which introduces young people in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States to opportunities and training in the film and television industries. Sharon is an Ambassador for Visit Belfast, that city’s agency for tourism and conferences. She is also a Strategic Advisor to CFP (Creating Friendships for Peace), a youth organization with projects in Cyprus and the Middle East.

Sharon is a firm believer in the power of young people, whatever their start in life, to create their own futures and make a positive difference in the world. She is regularly consulted by non-profits around the world.