2015 was a busy year for the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative and for our youth peacemakers, who continue to develop their skills as leaders and community builders. Around the world, from Mexico to Los Angeles to Uganda to South Sudan, our peacemakers have been hard at work teaching transformative peacebuilding at the community level, leading anti-bullying lessons in middle schools, providing Internet and computer classes for their neighbors, creating income-generating projects that provide work for unemployed youths in developing communities, bringing young people from different background and ethnicities together on the soccer field—and much more.
You can read all about our peacemakers’ achievements and our programs’ impact in our 2015 Annual Report.
WPDI is guided by the philosophy that people can create meaningful transformations in their communities when they coalesce together around the same goals. That is why, through the Youth Peacemaker Network, we seek to connect young leaders with one another and empower them to leverage their collective passion and energy to be a force for good.
By that same token, WPDI could not exist without the dedication and belief of our partners and concerned citizens across the globe. It is thanks to your generous contributions and our partners’ strategic, logistical, and financial support that WPDI is able to empower young women and men around the world to be leaders for peace and voices for change.
Despite the progress we made together over the past, our youth peacemakers are already looking ahead to the future. We will continue to support them as they deepen connections in their communities and work together to create more-peaceful societies.
2016 will also see some major expansions for WPDI. We are excited to be launching a branch of the Youth Peacemaker Network in Myanmar—WPDI’s first program in Asia. And, in collaboration with California State University Dominguez Hills, we have developed a Conflict Resolution Education curriculum that we will pilot in a middle school in Carson, CA.
We are grateful for your support as we work to empower the next generation of leaders to take ownership of their communities and plant the seeds of peace all around the globe.