USIP Youth Leaders’ Exchange with the Dalai Lama is available for application. The U.S. Institute of Peace and His Holiness the Dalai Lama have partnered with each other to strengthen the abilities of youth leaders to build peace in the world’s most violent regions.

The world’s most violent conflicts are being fought within its most youthful populations. In the five countries that suffered nearly 80 percent of recent deaths from violent extremism (Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria), half of all people are younger than 22. Prevention of this situation requires leadership from within the younger generations. Thus, this program will bring a group of young peacebuilders to a Dharamsala for two days of conversation with the Dalai Lama.

Benefits

In Dharamsala, the youth leaders can share their experiences as well as ideas on improving their communities’ abilities to manage conflict nonviolently, notably by drawing on human values of compassion and their communities’ own resources. Likewise, they can hold dialogues with the Dalai Lama on ways to build inner strength for their work. They can also conduct exchanges with local youth and train in prejudice reduction, leadership, and conflict management.

The Leaders

Participants in this program, in their 20s and early 30s, are young peacebuilders. Many have faced war or been uprooted by it. Some have lost friends or family to bloodshed, while others have lived in exile as refugees. Moreover, out of a commitment to ending or averting violence in their countries, these leaders have founded or guided projects that build bridges across social divides—whether between tribes, religious groups or genders. Their work includes mediating conflicts and training others to do so; helping refugee communities; and documenting human rights violations and war crimes.