 Greetings, greetings from Dharmshala, India. Welcome to the seventh annual Generation Change Exchange with His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama. This exchange is a partnership between the Office of His Holiness and the United States Institute of Peace. During our two-day dialogue, His Holiness will engage with 26 young, amazing peace builders from 12 conflict-affected countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. I am David Yong, Vice President at the United States Institute of Peace for the Gandhi King Global Academy, which is, of course, named after Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Our Academy serves as a support for training for peace builders. I will be honored to serve as the moderator for the dialogues for the next two mornings. Your Holiness, thank you very much for your support, your continuing support of our exchange. For the last two years, we enjoyed virtual dialogues with you online. But of course, we're even happier and honored to be back with you in Dharamshala. This past week, we have experienced the cool monsoon showers, a double rainbow in the sky, and the beautiful clear views of the Himalayas. So thank you for hosting us. Our young leaders this past week have taken a course in leadership skills here in Dharamshala. That course has included an introduction to the art of storytelling, an art that we believe is key to leadership and key to peace building. Your Holiness, we consider you one of this era's great, spiritual leaders, and one of its most eloquent peace builders. We have been moved by your stories of hope, compassion, resilience, and peace. That is why our dialogue, your dialogue, with our young peace building leaders. In it, we want to share with you stories about how children of war can become leaders for peace. How children of war can become leaders for peace. Your Holiness, we have divided our stories into four themes, four spiritual dimensions of peace building, largely inspired by your teachings. So after you hear each set of stories, I will invite you to share your own reflections and your own wonderful stories. And then time permitting, our leaders have some questions for you about their spiritual leadership on peace building. So our four themes, your Holiness, will be, number one, belonging to a community, number two, compassion that you've so deeply taught us, number three, inner peace to be able to do our peace building work, and four, our passion for equality and justice that we share with you. So we will now start our first theme and then invite your reflections. Our first theme is on belonging. And we have six short sharings to present to you. And our first will be Kual. Thank you very much, David. Your Holiness, my name is Kual Aroh Kual, a former child soldier and a refugee from South Sudan. The journey of my life began in the year 2004 when the war in my country was at the peak. There were no men left in the village. I remember I hadn't seen, I never saw my father. There were all the terrified faces of women and children. And while the Civil War was happening, there were internal insurgencies. And my village was left vulnerable to attacks. So the chief in my village decided to communicate that every family that had two male children contribute one to be trained as a child soldier. In my family, I was contributed. And the memories of that are terrifying. I remember that moonlit night sitting under an acacia tree beside my dying friend watching helplessly. Those were terrifying experiences. Your Holiness, as a human, there is nothing I can do to undo what I've been through. But I have been reflecting lately now that I'm a father. What is this kind of world that I leave for my children? And this has been the toughest reflection I've had. And now I'm working with the former child soldiers on their first step of healing by giving them the space to share their stories so that they can contribute to a better world. I now work with the former child soldiers and the refugees in northern Uganda. That's my story, Your Holiness. Thank you, Ko. Ruby. Good morning, Your Holiness, and everyone. I'm Ruby. I'm from Syria. Today, I want to tell a story of power, the power that my family gave me. But it's not the power of money or status. It's the power of words. I grew up in a family that believed in equality between man and woman. Feminism was the core of my upbringing. But the thing is, my family did not even know what feminism is. What they knew is that men and women are equally capable, strong, and intelligent. Equality between man and woman is not the norm in my society. My family could not change the whole society. But what they could do is give me the power of their words. They reminded me each time, me and my twin brother, that we are equal in every single aspect. And they used their words to remind me that I can take any challenge and path I choose. Before every exam, before my swimming and chess competition, before I traveled abroad on my own, they used to tell me, you are strong. You are powerful. For 27 years, even now, every time I doubt myself, they tell me, you are strong. You are powerful. And this is the word that I exactly need to hear, because powerful and strong are not words that are usually used to address women and girls. But these are the words I needed to find my path of happiness and success. And now, these are the words that give me power to fight for other women and girls. They also keep me going to challenge system of inequality and injustice. So one day, every single girl in my community grow up hearing, you are powerful, you are strong. Thank you, Your Holiness. Thank you, Ruby. Adriana, please. Thank you, David. Good morning, Your Holiness. I am Adriana. I'm from Colombia. And my story is in 2019, when I am about to start a project with young people. You're cool, too. OK. Young people. No. Come on. You are a young person. Young people deprive of the liberty and prison. I feel afraid, because I have been listening only bad news and comments about these young people. But as days go by, my feelings change. Because many times, I thought that vulnerability was bad. In my head, I thought that to be vulnerability was being big and cold war. And I thought that to be vulnerability was to be a victim. However, with the time and experience I have had in my life, in special with these young people, I realized that being vulnerable is to be human, to be strong, and to be brave. I just understood that these young people choose want only to be someone and to do something about their lives. And these young people want only opportunities for to grow up like me. And for this reason, I decided to be part of the solution and to be part of the young people who work for a better Colombia. Thank you. Thank you, Adriana. And then we have Okaash. Good morning, Your Holiness. My name is Mohamed Okaash. I'm from Somalia. 20 years ago, one night I was walking on a dark street to my home. It was the only street I could reach to home. Thank you, sir. I was walking on the street, I found two men with guns in front of me. It is the only way I could reach home. So as I was getting closer to them, I realized one of them was my former classmate who dropped out from school. It was a shocking moment for me. I couldn't know what to do. I took the risk and I passed the way. When I got closer to him, I said hi, and he said hi, he identified me. I was left safely and I reached home safely. And I started thinking, why you fellow young men are having guns around you? What is the future we look alike? Will you live in such an environment? I kept thinking and thinking and thinking. I made a decision. I was at a crossroad at my career. I did not know what to do after high school. So I decided to be an educator. I started my career as a teacher from primary school, secondary school, till at college. As time moves very fast, I teach the young people with employable skills and entrepreneurial skills so they can get jobs and start businesses. One day I was on the street. One of my students stopped me and he has a story to tell me. He said, I have a good news for you. And I asked, what is it? He was very happy. He said, I started a business and he sells a product around the market. His product is almost every shop. And he hired 20 young people. And that is the moment I felt I was contributing something valuable to my community. And that kept me moving to do everything that I do every day. And that is my way of building a peaceful and prosperous Somalia. Thank you, Okash. Moji. Your Holiness. My name is Moji Sola. I'm from Nigeria. Your Holiness, growing up for me was different because I grew up knowing holy my mother. This is because my father and my mother had divorced when I was a child. As a child, I saw my mom sell a property. Sometimes she even has to borrow money from family and friends just for her to be able to take care of me and my siblings. And this was really so heartbreaking. As I grew up more, I realized that the challenges that my mother faced is not just limited to her. There are hundreds of women out there that are affected by cultural barriers. I also realized that the stigmatization and the marginalization that women face in society affect the quality of their contribution to society and it's also affect their mental health. For my mom, she was really lonely because people thought that she's a bad example because in my culture, a woman is not expected to live her husband's house. To make things worse, my mom was living in a society that is affected by terrorism, kidnapping and social violence. I started to ask myself, what can I do to make change? This provoked me in 2018 to start a community initiative that supports women, particularly women from disadvantaged homes like me. And I began to ask myself, how can I help women to find their voice, to be able to use their voice to make change and break stereotypes? Your holiness, today I'm happy to tell you that I have created a safe space for young women which I call the Peace Club. And Children's Peace Club, I'm able to bring young women together, to be able to empower each other, to support each other, to share and learn with each other. My Peace Club is now in three communities and I have over 50 young women there. This is how I'm making impact in my community. Thank you, your holiness. Thank you very much, Moji, for your powerful story and your powerful work. Your Holiness, we have one more story about belonging. We'll invite your thoughts. This is Leonardo. Your Holiness, good morning. It was a sunny morning, 9 a.m., a room full of kids around me, 20 of them, and then the bell to go to the ring. And everyone left that room, including the teacher. But I was the only one who stayed in that room. And I was looking at a blank wall in front of me. And I was wondering in my mind, why did they all left? Why am I the only one who is here? At that point, I realized what it's like to be left behind. What it's like to not be part of a group. What it's like to feel that you don't belong. But I also realized it is not just me. This is a reality that many people in my country face. They feel that the government is not taking care of them. They feel that they're not part of that larger society. 20 years later, I'm looking at a blank page. And this time, it's a blank page full of hope. And here in this blank page, we wrote letters to the ex-combatants in our country who were coming back to society after war to welcome them, to give them a new opportunity to be part of our community. We exchanged more than 7,000 letters. And with this process, we believe that if we give each one a second chance, if we can create a society and a community where each one feels that they can belong, we can bring reconciliation to our nation. Thank you. Thank you, Leonardo. How are you? Colombia. Colombia. Colombia. Yes. Thank you to our young leaders for their stories, your holiness. So you've heard these six stories of how war can damage the families from our six leaders, how it has created in them both sadness, quail leaving his family, and O'Cash being threatened by an armed classmate, and Moji's very sad story of discrimination against her mother. But yet in all the stories, there's stories of resilience as well. And so I know your holiness, you're a model of resilience. I've loved your stories about your mother. And despite your becoming Dalai Lama at the age of four, despite your exile, the love of your mother continues in your heart and provides you great strength if you could reflect on what you've heard and your own search for belonging in your leadership. Good. Good. You serve yourself. Humanity in this planet. Because, you see, human population much increase at the society, economy, education. These are little, I may say, corrupted, not very equal. So now, whether we accept these difficult, unfair situation, accept or not, it is reality. Now we have to work this unhealthy world. We must make effort to create healthy world and happy humanity. You see, distinction, different race, different nation, different color, different religion, these are secondary. We really think have to, say, make effort. Entire humanity on this planet, we all have equal rights. I always say, we all come from our mother. When we were young, taking mother's milk, we are equal. I don't think different nation with different color. I don't think as long as a born mother take care and sucking mother's milk. Mother's side, immense affection and our self also totally relying on mother. That's we all human being. You see, when our life start, same way. Now, I always say, feel. Now we must make effort to promote human, home-hearted feeling. The Hindi, Karuna, compassion. Young age as a human being, as a sort of community or group. So at the young age, no discrimination, rich or poor, or what color, what religion, what nationality, we all feel same, play together. Then we join education. And education, now frankly speaking, the, I mean, a thousand year old sort of education, analyze things and how to work the actual circumstances. But then we share, and also many Africans. So the Western imperialist brought modern education. Modern education, I love modern education. However, modern education very much oriented about material value, not much talk about inner value. So now I feel, even my own lifetime, First World War, Second World War, and a lot of killing. All these, you see, through education, too much distinction. We, a day, not much sort of thinking, we are same human being. We have to live together. Now, time come in our education. We should insist entire seven billion human being. We are same human brothers, sisters. We have to live together on this planet. There is no proper ground to say, or European, or Asian, African. You see, no sound sort of basis. We all, two eyes, one nose, one mouth. If someone, three eyes, then I surprise. Otherwise, we all same, exactly same. I think if you go detail about our brain, same. So now, population increasing. And climate condition also sometimes, you see, create a problem. So now, seven billion human being, we have to live together with sense of, with strong sense of brotherhood, sisterhood. We are same human being. So on the division, on the basis of color, basis of different nationality, and also even using differences of religion. These are, I think, no proper reason. Religion, personal business, personal matter, when we're born, no particular religion. Then through modern education, then in a distinction, your race, your nation, your religion create more complication. Now time come, we have to insist all seven billion human being, we are same. We born same way with mother. We die same way their last breathing. So, and then most important, we human being, when we born, mothers take care, affection or compassion. At the time of dying, also you surrounded with people who really show you genuine warm feeling, the dying person much happier. Or say, too much ceremony thing, it's not much effect. Important is surrounding people who really show you genuine love. I told the former Indian, I told him when, of course, I will live another 15, 20 years, there's no question. But at the time, when I dying, I prefer in India, surrounded with people who really show you love. Not artificial something, if I dying, surrounded with Chinese officials, too much artificial. So, I much prefer dying this country, free, democracy, open. So, when we born, no ceremony, at the time of death, no need ceremony, surrounded by trusted friend, who really show you genuine feeling. And then during lifetime, freedom very important. Our brain quite sophisticated, thinking and particularly, we human brain have the ability to investigate. And always raise the question, why, why, why, why, why? That's very useful. And in order to fully develop question, why, why, why, you need freedom. Just one political system, not allow many different views, just one view. It's actually the spoiling human brain. Our brain very sophisticated think many thing and a lot of questions. So, totalitarian system, very bad. Each individual should have complete freedom, thinking and raise a lot of question, why, why, why, why? I think in India, over thousand year, you see the question of why, that really help development of Indian different spirituality and different culture. So in order to fully utilize human brain, we need complete freedom. So now, I spent few years in Tibet. The Chinese communist just only allowed to think about their own communism system, not allowed other things. It is wrong. Now look China itself, number of Chinese who really showing interest about Buddhism, about my talk. So the people, as a human being, they also need genuine freedom to think, to listen. I think if you use, as an except creator, the creator creates two ears. So listen this side, listen this side. So different sort of views, different concept, very helpful to learn. Then each individual's own brain judging, may I say so, even religion, your family, your community belongs certain religion. But after you born and gradually you have right to investigate and whether you remain a non-believer up to you, your family, very religious minded, but yourself and thinking, thinking, thinking. Then more, I'll say, atheist, okay. But so long, we as a member of human society, nobody can escape from human compassion. Religion is something different. But basically we all should have warm feeling because in order to use, survive your human community's help or your life, very much depend on the community. So close feeling, truly sense of human brother, sisters. So now warm heartedness here, it automatically bring inner peace, more affectionate minded people there, then no basis to grow fear. So fear, very bad for mental state, fear or then also fear or very often develop anger. Anger very bad for our health, even our sleep, too much anger, you can't sleep without anger, more warm hearted feeling, the sound sleep. I always sound sleep, eight hours, nine hours sleep. So anger is real enemy, destroy your peace of mind and bring fear, uncomfortable. So without anger, more compassionate, more warm hearted, then you get inner peace, with inner peace, even food, more taste, full of anger, even food, not much good taste. So we human being, we have this sophisticated mind. So our life whether become happy life or not, much depend on this emotion, this is not question of religious thing, simply in order to carry peaceful life, happy life, day and night, and whenever you meet people, always smile as a human brother, sister, no use to show that. So I myself, I practice compassion on the basis of entire human being on this planet, actually our brother, sisters. So different color, different nationality, different sort of faith, these are secondary. Basically as I mentioned earlier, we are same human face, human being. So with that feeling, wherever I go, I always feel very happy. I always smile, as I already mentioned, if someone, you see teeth, something like tiger, something and different eye, then I feel difficult. But basically we are same human being. Then more important, we have to live together on this planet. On the differences of nationality, religion, color, these are secondary. The past concept now no longer relevant, world population increasing and climate also now unpredictable. So now remaining we human being, we have to live happily, side by side. Sense of brotherhood, sisterhood. I'm like this, dressed, Buddhist monk. But basically I'm human being, same. So oneness of human being, I feel that is important. Wherever I go, I always talk, we are same. Entire human being, we are human brother, sisters. Okay. Your Holiness. Now some questions? Yes. Some argument. Okay, I'm going to call on Ruby first. Please Ruby. Yes. Thank you, Holiness, for your inspiring words. I have a question. You mentioned many challenges, such as the increase in population and climate change. So to you, what is a good leader that can lead us in what is coming in the future? Basically principle, democracy, best, and a leader through election. I think people also should have better education than can judge. But when election takes place, use pocket money is also not very good. And then of course, you see by force, no useful. So genuinely complete freedom, then choose very good. Thank you. Call, please. Thank you very much, your Holiness. It's a very deep learning for me. My question has always been in regards to what I do. Sometimes I'm very angry and you mention anger about the slow pace, the things are moving. I feel like I do a lot, but there is no impact. I don't see a lot of impact. So how do I prevent myself from this deep anger and how do I prevent myself from getting burned out, like overworking myself in this situation? When some situation, some people create which causing you anger, but then investigate, investigate whether these people voluntarily doing this or some other reason, some other pressure. And then also, you see, unhealthy activities mainly due to short sighted, not taking long run consequences. So emotional level, anger is very short sighted. Without anger, then use human intelligence, analyze, analyze and look more holistic way Then you see the reality of anger not seeing holistic, only the particular spot. So that is, I may say, uncivilized people. Then you see anger almost normal, but we, some education, some knowledge about happiness and happy family, happy community, you see, our view should be more wider perspective. And long term, so thinking, very important. I believe we humanity, very nature from birth, affection, compassion there. So we live among humanity. So little, little obstacle come. That may be some temporary causes. Long run, I believe we human being, we are one of social animal who have more sense. Therefore little, little problem happen due to certain circumstances, but basically no way to lose our faith to humanity, to human birth of sisters. And some of these are the problem, we can, we tell people through media and can change these things, should not let out anger and killing, no use. I really feel the time of gun out to date it. Now in my lifetime, as I briefly mentioned, First World War, Second World War, during my lifetime, how many people killed by weapon? And then when I was seeing these soldier with carrying gun, they carry these work not voluntarily, but order, whether king or queen or warlord. That is now out to date it. We each individual, we should have full freedom, thinking. Your Holiness, you spread love and compassion online, and Moji has a question about the opposite of that. In her generation, many, please Moji. Yeah. I would like to ask also that we are born as man and woman, and then how can we live together? Because we also see that in this world, women also are marginalized. How can we begin to... How? How? Marginalized. Yeah. So how can love be between man and woman? Such that they are being treated equally and fairly together. Whether there is creator or not, men need women, women need men. So the human nature, frankly speaking, women serve sort of physical condition which produce child and milk. And father, or suppose in different family. So we should think the nature process. Sometimes we, human being, particularly human leader, too much sort of sophisticated mind. So it's a control, basic human nature. How? Challenger. Challenger. D, D, D, D. Your Holiness, thank you for your reflections. And before we move on to the next theme, our second theme, I want to reflect that the love... No. Stronger. Hunger. No differences between men and women. We all same. So before we move on to the next theme, I want to ask you a favor because you spoke so lovingly about your mother and about how the love of a mother is so much the cause for our ability to be compassionate human beings and to be able to be a part of our communities, to belong to our communities. You heard Ruby talk about her mother and her father. You heard Moji talk about the strength of her mother. Ruby's parents mantra rings in my ears. You are strong. You are powerful. So before we move on, I'd love to ask you to share your stories about your mother. I remember your story about your writing on your mother's shoulders and could you please share some of your memories of your mother? I come from a small village. So the whole situation, more human nature. So a mother takes care of her children. At that time, no nursery or like that, mother takes. And my mother take care on mother's shoulder. And sometimes I control my mother's direction. I hold my mother's to ear. So no mission, just human. I think that way of life really create life very close to our nature. And missions or gradually or our life in a way become much easier. But in a way of very human way of thinking, a little bit distance. So tea, tea, tea. Thank you, your Holiness. So I think we're going to move now and bring the second group. So please bring your tea with you. Thank you to our first group of storytellers. Oh, sorry. Important thing is we should have strong feeling oneness of seven billion human being. We are same. We have to live together. So due to little, little differences fighting among humanity and produce weapon to kill human brothers and sisters, it's totally wrong how to date it. Now we must build a real peaceful world with all human beings. Same human being. So we have to live together. And different color, even you want to marry different color, okay. So now absolutely we should have freedom and the thinking of more nature mind, not artificial thinking. Okay. Thank you. So our next theme, our next spiritual dimension of leadership and peace building, we believe is one of your favorite topics, compassion. So we have six more leaders to share their stories about compassion in their young lives and in their new leadership. So we're going to start first with my good friend, Sebastian. Good morning, Your Holiness. My name is Sebastian. I'm from Colombia. And this is the best. From Colombia. Colombia, yes. This is the best day of my life, by the way. It was April in 2017. I was in this little village in the middle of the jungle that was created for the peace process in Colombia to gather the guerrilla. There was a little cabin, poorly constructed, and inside there these guys were making tattoos. I get inside because I really want to get one, and I remember there was an ex-combatant were laid in a bed making these tattoos, and he was laughing and making jokes with his friends about how they used to took villages, like the one that I was growing, in which I grew up. I remember just right there that my family was violent displaced from people like him. We escaped to Bogota, and my father actually had to take care of the family. He was younger than me right now. He started selling drugs. He ended up in prison, and that was like five years. After those five years, we were walking, actually, in some streets in Bogota, and he was chotted to death. It was a hard time. Back in the cabin, I reached my pocket, because I had a pen, and I was preparing myself to kill this guy. I know it's really bad. This little girl comes inside the cabin, crawling, reached the bed, and this ex-combatant took her from the ground, and hugged her tightly, and that day changed my life, actually. That day really changed my life, and I have been working, but the thing about this, the real important thing here, is that this is not about our revenge, this is not about us, as people that have been experiencing violence in any way, this is about the next generations, and I think that that's why we are working, and that's why all of my brothers and sisters are here. Thank you, your holiness. Thank you, your spastry. And our next leader is Helina. Good morning, your holiness. My name is Helina Fesaha, I'm from Ethiopia. I work in humanitarian organization towards emergency response for the internally displaced people, which is internally displaced in my country, which is now commenting in my country. So every time I work in emergency response, I feel two-sidedness. The one side is like, I'm hopeful for these people, I'm here to help the people which are in need, and in the other side, I feel so heartbroken because I saw a woman, a mother, with her children without no food to feed her children, and I saw a father with his children without no shelter to live in, and I saw many of the people flee from their original placement to the place where they never even know where they are moving. So in this part, I realize and I see to understand where is my place for me to change. And in my childhood, I grew up in a church where I know how to respect people, where I learned how to respect and how to love others in friends, family, and the society. So what I believe is for us to start change, our religious leaders in our institution, wherever of any kind of a religion it might be, but it's so helpful for us to make unity for us to feel some humanity. So thank you. Thank you. I really feel wonderful, the spirit of the European Union, France, Germany, many decades of the enemy killing each other, but then under the leadership of Adana Decode, you see, eventually they developed the European Union, through many decades killing each other, consider enemy, enemy, but that completely changed. Now whole European Union, no military forces and no record ever member state killing each other is not just a theory, it actually happened. So now thinking, some time back on occasion, some scientists want to examine my brain. I didn't accept, but actually my mind, my brain, quite peaceful. I train on daily practice, atroism. So my brain quite sort of was a peaceful sound that directly effect my sleep and also digestion. Much fear, much anger, that even digestion leave it difficult, isn't it? So peace of mind, I think you cannot buy peace of mind from shops or produce from factories, but yourself, mother give you this brain, and mother take maximum care with affection. So you yourself, more compassionate mind, thinking that way, not expensive, but most beneficial. Thank you, your Holiness. Now we turn to Ana. Hello, your Holiness. I am Ana, I am from Venezuela, and what I'm going to tell you is about a really meaningful time that I experienced, that thinking of what is compassion to me. In 2017, I remember I was in my university and I had my backpack with books and with a tear gas mask. We had been protesting Venezuelan youth for over 90 days with more than 100 killings of young people by the arms of the government and the military forces. All of us students went downhill to protest and it was normal to us in all of those 90 days. But I remember when I saw the tanks of the National Guard, I felt so angry, so so angry, and I thought about everything that had happened in those 90 days. I was holding a shield that had painted on it. I fight for my family to come back home. The Venezuelan crisis have taken around 6 million people that are now living in other countries. I went downhill with this shield and I found myself only with a barrier of wood between me and the armed forces. I was paralyzed and I found myself completely alone and I felt