 Hello, welcome. My name is Nancy Lindbergh. I'm the President of the United States Institute of Peace. And we are beaming in from the studios of Radio Free Asia here in Dharmsala in the beautiful mountains of northern India. And thank you for joining us for an important conversation that we'll be having on finding resilience in the face of conflict and crisis. The US Institute of Peace was founded 35 years ago by the US Congress with the mission of preventing and resolving violent conflict around the world. And we do this by working in regions affected by violent conflict, partnering with people, with organizations and governments to share knowledge, tools, and information about how to prevent conflict from becoming violent and how to resolve it if it does. We know that some of the most violent conflict in the world is occurring in countries with the youngest populations. For example, in both Nigeria and Iraq, some 40% of the population is under the age of 14. So we know that it is the youth in those countries who are the best hope for a more peaceful, more prosperous future. So we are here in Dharmsala, where we have just completed a dialogue with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, with USIP's Generation Change Fellows. And Generation Change Fellows are a network that USIP supports with training for them to become more effective leaders and very importantly creating a community of practice so they can support each other in their important work, sharing information, sharing ideas. And this week, 27 Generation Change Fellows joined thought leaders for a dialogue with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama on what does it take to maintain the kind of inner resilience and resolve to be a peace builder in very difficult conflict situations. And I can tell you that after having been a part of that dialogue, I am coming away filled with enormous hope at the determination, at the creativity, at the dedication of these young leaders. At US Institute of Peace, our motto is that peace is possible, and we're certainly seeing that here in this conversation. We have a great panel conversation, and then we're going to engage all of our Generation Change Fellows. Before we begin, I'd like to thank Radio Free Asia for three years now of collaborating on this important program. I'd also like to thank GHR Foundation, a wonderful partner who shares with US Institute of Peace a sense of importance and dedication to supporting youth leaders in their efforts to build bridges around the world. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to our moderator for today's discussion, Greg Zuroya. Greg is a writer on the editorial page of USA Today. He's also covered conflict in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and he's received awards for his reporting on the impact of conflict and the trauma that it causes on both individuals and those who are serving in those areas. So he's well positioned to take us through an important conversation with wonderful panelists. And with that, I turn it over to Greg. Greg? Thanks, Nancy. I appreciate that. This is such an exciting time right now, and such an exciting event that we're involved in here, because we have these youth leaders that are at the forefront of trying to do amazing things in areas that are so dangerous and so full of conflict. Our panel discussion tonight is as both people who are youth leaders doing this kind of work and also subject matter experts. I'd like to introduce them to you. To my far left is Jimmy Briggs. Jimmy's a journalist and activist. He's a documentary storyteller, writer, and advocate for racial and gender equality. He's a member of the New York City Mayor's Gender Equity Commission. He's also an adjunct professor at the International Center of Photography in New York. He was the founding executive director of MANUP Campaign, a globally focused organization to activate youth to stop violence against women and girls. To my immediate left is Maya Sotero. Maya serves as a consultant to the Obama Foundation. She works closely with their international team to develop programming in the Asia Pacific region. Before that, she was the director of the Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where in addition to leading outreach and development initiatives, she also taught leadership for social change, history of peace movements, peace education, and conflict management for educators. To my right, to my immediate right, is one of our two youth leaders, Wadi Benherke. Her passion is equality for all. She works with training people as human rights experts, and she supports, and this is in support of women's rights. And to her right is Maron Kocho. He works with young people in northern Iraq. Maron was born in a Yazidi family in a small town of Vashika that is located north of Mosul. He works through an organization called Middle East Sustainable Peace in helping to shape peace activists. So the crucial issue right now is in the idea of resiliency and conflict is how when conflict occurs, resiliency is so important. And in discussions with His Holiness the Dalai Lama this week, we learned about ways to try and deal with resiliency. Wadi was there, and she was asking him questions as were other of these youth leaders. She told an incredible story about something that happened to her just recently from in Nigeria, where she's from, where there can be random violence. In that case, recently she lost her uncle. And I wondered if she could talk a little bit about that, because in the question she asked the Dalai Lama, she said that this kind of conflict, this kind of terrible thing that happens to her, these kinds of things happen so often that now she's almost finding it hard to, difficult to cry. Wadi, could you talk a little bit about that and maybe a little bit about what the Dalai Lama had to say in response? Thank you for the opportunity. It was a great pleasure meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And my question was basically where I am at this point, where I settled, I found it difficult crying because it's normal. I cannot count how many relatives I've lost. And so it's just like, it's nothing new anymore. But one thing He told me that I will go back home with is the fact that you should either use the pain for something good or bad, either use it to determine to end this violence or use it to just sit down and say, if I'm safe, I don't care about other people. And in Nigeria, most people, because of the pain they've gone through, they start to join the terrorists. They're like, I've been hurt, let me hurt other people. But one thing I realized is that it's going to be a vicious, unending cycle because I will hurt you, you will hurt her, she will, and it will not end. But when we decide to sit back and absorb the pain and translate it into something amazing by saying, although I was affected, I don't want another person to be affected. You use that pain and push it to strengthen you, to end that cause, either by starting up a movement or by just doing something, amplifying your voice, basically. And that's what He said. He's been through a whole lot, but He did not let that limit him. He instead used that to keep spreading love, peace, and which I believe is possible. Although now I find it difficult crying, but it doesn't mean that I will stop. I still believe I can do something and I will definitely try my best. So at the end of the day, I'll know that I played the part. Thank you. What He had to talk about was about inner peace. What does that mean to you? And is that something that you feel like you can really try to acquire? Of course, inner peace is something that I don't think anyone can take away from you because it's within you. It's not like a book or a quote that someone can take. And that's something I believe we should learn to keep sacred and not let just anyone influence you. There was something profound He said today where He was like, you know that someone is really when you look for the person's trouble and see how the person will act. Most times where peace builders will go, we say, let's stop this war, do this. But at the end of the day, we go back home and we feel so much pain, so much pressure. And He said, when you respond to criticisms, you're not at peace because when you believe so much in yourself and the motive behind what you do, whatever people say wouldn't really matter to you. So inner peace is something I would take very seriously, especially looking at his life. If he didn't have that, I don't think he will still be alive at that age and still have time to talk to us. So inner peace is what you use and then when you have it, you can easily give it out. So inner peace is something I've learned from him and I'll take it back home. So I'll be able to live long enough to make the change I want to see. Now that a lot of working in areas of conflict, deals with, you have to deal with migration with the people who are driven out of their homes. Maron, I know that you've got firsthand experience with that. ISIS came to your area where you lived north of Mosul and people were just fleeing from them, those that survived. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your experience and in trying to work with people who are caught up as refugees and in migration, you have to kind of work with how they react to this situation, how it changes them and changes their lives. What, you've actually gone through that yourself. Can you talk a little bit about how you react? Yeah, in the beginning when we started fleeing to the safest areas north of Iraq, Kurdistan specifically, we had faced so many problems, like seeing so many people living in the streets without shelter in the beginning, especially in the beginning before the NGOs and the Kurdish government started to help the refugees. We faced so many challenges to accept the hate that it was inside us against the ISIS. We had, most of the people were facing that losing the faith in humanity, losing the faith in all the neighbors. Because most of our neighbors of that town, like we're the ones who were against us. But we had to come up with a solution. We had to absorb happiness, absorb peace and just get off the hate inside us. That was difficult and for me it was really difficult and challenging for me, but for other people it was, they could, they could not accept it. This being displaced is not just living in another place. We would appreciate if we lose our places forever but not losing a woman and being used as a sex slave or being sold or children being trained to be soldiers and tourists. But it's our right and it's our goal to start and build up the happiness and build up peace in ourselves to bring up our community back up again. It can be, I'm sure kind of a dizzying effort to try and understand how to deal with being forced into a whole different country or a different part of the country you're in and losing your homeland. I remember that the youth leaders when they were talking to Dalai Lama brought that up and his answer was about looking at this kind of oneness and looking at your, trying to understand that you can't be tied to so much to where you're from. Can you, I mean, did that make sense to you and what did you take away from that? It does make so much sense to me and in the beginning it was hard. It was really hard to accept the difference the new environment. But as he mentioned, and I remembered when his holiness talked about it, that oneness and living in a new place and you see other people, you don't see a difference and you should accept it because all the human are the same and the land is changing and the borders were made by politics, by politicians and it was made like in the beginning it was made for all the people. Again, for most of the people who fled and were displaced, they got used to it to leave and they were accept, they accepted the new environment, they accepted the new people. They started doing business sometimes, some of them, but again the most important thing were the women who were taken and sold and most of the other men, like 7,000 men, women and children were used to be sex slaves and the children again were trained to be soldiers but the men were killed. So most of the families lost their people but again the ones who made it managed to escape and they got used to live in a new environment. It's a really hard lesson to learn. Now I want to open this up to members of the audience so we've got a wonderful selection of youth leaders in the audience who have their own experiences who come from areas of conflict. We've got subject matters up here that certain experts up here, you could ask questions of other members of the youth leaders. Before we begin though, I'd like to throw out a question to the audience and I'd like to hear from a couple of you about what you think about this. I know that when you came here to see the His Holiness of Dalai Lama, many of you had questions about how do we succeed against the strife that we're trying to deal with? I mean some of it, as you explained many of you so eloquently, is so difficult and so prevalent that you work so hard to try to bring peace and try to resolve issues that it seems like it's impossible to see change. And when many of you asked him about that, he said something interesting. He said we should be determined to make an effort but without much expectation of change. It was kind of a very realistic way of looking at it almost like a cup of cold water in the face. And I'm curious, Ken, one of you just tell me did that, did you find that sustaining or how did you respond to that? Anybody, if you want, just raise your hand and yes, please, and give us your name and what country you're from. Hi, my name is Dua, I'm from Iraq. And what was important about His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is that he was so spiritual and realistic and we can relate to him. He said that we may exhaust ourselves as human rights fighters and peace builders. Sometimes we reach this point of frustration and we can't do it. I mean, we sometimes reach this point of depression that our efforts are not enough and we didn't make any change in our society but he said that, okay, you don't have to expect anything to change in the near future, maybe in the next 20 or 30 years. So it's like planting a seed and having the passion and patience to wait it to be a tree and to have better results in the future. So being realistic and at the same time having this insistence inside our souls to make an effort. It's like being, like it left some of the weight that we have on ourselves like as peace builders and at the same time, we can like continue like our efforts. He said himself, I remember him saying that he doesn't believe he would see change in his lifetime. And I know you were young people with many years ahead of you. Do you, any of you think, are you settled now with this idea, this notion that patience is what's gonna be important and that it's gonna take a long time? Anybody, yes, please. Oh yes, go right ahead. Give us your name and your country of origin. Hi, I'm Mohammed from Somalia. I really learned a lot of things from that point of view, especially the point which was related about resistance and efforts because that was one of the major problems that I have been facing with the projects and also things that I have been doing because of when I started my work. Could you stand up, please? Thank you. And start over. That was a message that I got from His Holiness Le Lamma. It was because when I started Somalia project is one of the things that I had in my mind was like the outcome. So I was expecting the outcome to come and they get very soon. But from His speech I got that we should not expect the outcome but we should bear a lot of efforts in being committed to what we are doing. So which makes us even get the outcome. So if we always keep in mind the outcome and to get like the great work which is related to this building that we get the beast and we live in beast, then it might not come. And the greatest example that he gave just helped me a lot which was like that he has been working for beast for more than 60 years and he's still in thrust of just like getting. But he's not expecting even to get but just doing that for the other generation. So this gave me like a very great inspiration which is like that I do whatever I do and remove my mind to bring like why would you get from this thing? Just that I just give any effort that I can to at least even give others the outcome of what I'm doing. Thank you so much. Incredibly generous way to look at it and especially when you consider the great strain that must come from working in areas where there's such conflict and it's so difficult to find success. Does anybody else have a question and or an observation and a question for the panel? Yes, please. And stand up please. Oh yeah, thank you very much. My name is Abdul Wabiri, I'm from Somalia. I'm so excited to be here today with you. To add one more point on one, my colleague from Somalia said about expecting a reward or return for the work you're doing. His wholeness himself said, focusing for the minor parts of your life will develop sense of loneliness to yourself. And that shows you as he himself said as a response of one of the questions asked by the younger youth leaders, if you spirit love and expect to be loved back that's selfishness. It shows that it's not about the work we're doing ourselves but about the generations that we're creating that we're trying to create a generation for them. And that exactly matches the two old sayings which says, with patience, ease comes. And the sacrifice we're doing will create possibilities for entire. So I absolutely can convince my ego and internal conflict now that the work I'm doing is not for my better future but the future of the generations of the communities I live with and the world communities that I belong to. And that was a little observation. And I had a question for my two fellow youth leaders which is like his wholeness that Elama said, it is very important to develop sense of wellness. And that we as human being belong to each other no matter which faith, color or region we came from. And exposing that to our practical situation in the world you will realize that it is either way round. Because living in 21st century you will understand that the world now is focusing on developing weapons and chemical weapons. And that will show you how the future looks like. So as a younger generation we're expecting to live better future. How can we trust the future? How can we trust the future? And the politics that are going on the world that sense of wellness as a community as a human being can be practical in the future we're looking for it. Is it a question, Maron you wanna give a shot? Yeah. You remember when, thank you Wahibi for the question. What you remember when he said don't expect anything from the future as long as you do everything from your heart that's the most important thing. You are not expecting the results. You just do whatever it takes for the peace. It's your willingness as you already mentioned to make a change. The change that you wanna make you may not see it but the most important thing that you do it not to see the production of it. Not to see the result. The most important thing is to do it. No matter how and when will it happen maybe 100 years from now. So just doing it, practice it, that's the most important thing. These are young people with a lot of courage and when they look to their responsibility and how they're gonna deal with this in the future but they all are exposed to things that the average human beings are not when it comes to working in areas of conflict and trying to deal with instilling resiliency. Trauma, it can be an experience and Maya, I know you're an authority on dealing with trauma and something called post-traumatic growth. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe you could kind of briefly give us an idea of how people can overcome that. Thank you. I don't think I'm an authority at all. I think everyone here is probably an authority on trauma but these young people are so giving of themselves that I worry a bit that perhaps they're not engaging in enough self-care. So I do think that there is great value in having the spirit of activism and devotion to your communities but I would like, I suppose, to ensure that you do remain here for a long time on this planet, healthy and whole and so I think that the Dalai Lama spoke about peace within and as well as peace between people and peace and service to the community and I am so grateful for the various tools we've been exploring this week. Meditation and mindfulness can offer peace within that sense of anger management and calm, the breath, the wonderful work that the Generation Change group has done on sort of understanding and uncovering a sense of purpose. We've also learned a lot about dialogue. I think that dialogue can be so useful for moving from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth. You take what has happened, the conflict, the trauma and you find a way to reduce the amount of fear. Even if you can't engage in dialogue with the person with whom you are in conflict, you can have a dialogic mindset, you know. As an example, a minor example, because I don't live in conflict situations like you do, but there was a woman who sort of was stalking me and saying unpleasant things about me online. I went to her Facebook page and I saw there that she was kissing her kittens and her grandchildren and I realized at that moment that she was doing the very best that she knew how to do with the information that she had. And that's, I think, critical for developing that sense of oneness with others. Even though that woman would never probably invite me to dinner, nor would I likely go if she did. The point is that my fear was reduced at that moment. There is so much in the work that you've been doing that can help us to reduce fear about the other. To know that humanity that exists within them, that universal need that we spoke about for a wide array of things like family, community, security, love, tenderness that that exists in the other. And I also think that a big part of what the Generation Change leaders have done that can help with the trauma is they've been engaging in storytelling. They've been using their voices. There's so much that we can do through art, through expression, through our cultural celebration, through the joyous reverie in sort of human existence. You all have so much to give the world and your stories are going to make a difference and they will heal you as well. As you engage in song, you'll find, I think, the feeling of oneness with the world that can give that calm and can also celebrate your community. There's questions that there's trying to deal with those young people and trying to help them through these areas of trying to bring peace. But there's the other side as well. There's kind of the person behind the gun that causes the violence. Jimmy, you've done some incredible work with examining young people, children even, who become soldiers in war. You've written an incredible book, Innocence Lost, When Child Soldiers Go to War. Can you talk to us a little bit about, I mean, how do you change that? I know from covering the military myself that young men who get involved in that, they kind of, that becomes their identity, is in some ways their weapon, their violence. For children, it even starts earlier. How do you deal with that? Well, I really appreciate it. It's all in a sink. Really, two things stuck out for me the past two days. One is the recurring theme of education. I think in terms of talking about transforming behavior, unhealthy behavior, particularly with boys named men, toxic masculinity, unhealthy masculinity and manhood. I think we see the manifestations of those. When boys become child soldiers, we see the manifestation when it is unsafe for women and refugee and IDP camps. We see the manifestation when women feel compelled to go through female circumcision, or to engage in child marriage, or as I learned recently from my young sister Wadi, breast ironing. And I feel like, you know, education is critical, but he did something today which really stood out for me and affirmed me, because as he said, he outed himself as a feminist. And I'm gonna out myself now as a feminist man, because I think to do human rights work that's sustainable, lasting, impactful, whether you're a woman, a man, or identify elsewhere in the gender identity spectrum, you have to be a feminist. You have to believe that regardless of one's gender identity, that we all deserve and demand fair treatment to be treated equally, to be safe to realize our visions and hopes for ourselves and our communities, and to stand up to be allies with those who are being victimized or oppressed because of their gender identity. And what I've continued to learn, especially from these dynamic and people, my young brothers and sisters to my left, it's just the importance of building a community across lines of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, economic status as my brother, Weber said earlier. And I think that we have to have these conversations formally, but also informally. And by that I mean, we have to find the people in our communities. And I was talking with my sister, Kessie, about this a few nights ago. We have to find the men and boys in our communities who can model a different embodiment of manhood. We have to show young men and boys that manhood is something that's very individually defined. There's no one archetype we all fit into. Some of us are more feminine and masculine or we contradict the traditional narrative of manhood. And I think that has to be embraced. And we do affirm men who do that. And so I think for the Dalai Lama to say I'm a feminist for me was powerful because I was telling someone earlier, we need more men of the stature and iconography to say the same thing. And really stand with women as allies. I think we've got some either men of that stature right now or seem to be men of that stature in the audience who are youth leaders and women for that matter who will be examples. So I'd like to hear from them. Does anyone else, can some of you of us have a comment or on question for the panel? I know that when it comes to women's issues that, I'm sorry, please go right ahead. Yeah, it's just an observation and affirmation from what I heard from the panel, which is NRP. So maybe my colleague will ask it about the future and our fear of the future because we as youth leaders sometimes we get excited and want to solve all the problems that are in front of us. And though sometimes we come to a moment when we overburden ourselves and out burn, it feels like we are swimming against the tide till the moment we're gonna like, it's just over us. So maybe for me, I believe that actually, word peace can start from within. And when I met what I mean by inner peace, it's just like being aware of our emotion, the other people's emotion and actually be able to give back to them and just don't accept it, receiving something. So always in our goals, we should have no expectation of what's gonna happen. Just do have a vision, a specific vision and go through it. And yes, I believe in inner peace. Thank you. One of the tough things I think in working, I can imagine in working in your field from hearing the youth leaders speak about this and so on is this idea of how it seems like your goals are so far away from you. So you have to go so far to achieve them. And I'd like to hear from someone in the audience about how do you know you're succeeding? I mean, how do you, in the work you're doing, I know that Alul was talking about one of the trainers for the program was talking about some of the institutionalized wrongs that exist in South Sudan, for example, and how hard it is to try to overcome those, for example, child brides, and that's one of her goals. And I'm wondering, can anyone speak to how you know, in these hard times, when you are succeeding, anyone at all? And please stand and give us your name and country of origin. Yes. Hi again. Well, for me, I always say to myself as some kind of encouragement, if I was working with like 25 women and I helped one of them, then I'm successful. If each one of us put an effort, like put their passion in whatever they do and help one individual through their lives, and I think that is enough. I mean, sometimes you don't see the results right away, but you have to have this passion inside your soul that, okay, I'm doing what I can. I'm putting effort in what I love and I'm trying to help people. And I think that's it. You don't have to see the results right away. You don't have sometimes to ask yourself if I'm successful or not, because it will put a lot of pressure on your mind and your soul. So sometimes you just have to keep going and see whatever will come to our ways. Thank you very much. Can I respond to that good? Yes, please. I just want to respond quick for me quickly. Thank you so much for saying that. I agree with you heartily. You know, I think among a number of things that has holding us said over the past several days of our time with him, one of the things that really resonated deeply for me, and I think you really touch upon it with what you just remarked just now is the importance of the inner peace, but also recognizing that the change that you all are seeking, that we're all seeking collectively, is a communal effort. May you all are dynamic, individual social entrepreneurs and leaders, visionaries. And as you'll run over time, those visions are realized not by yourself individually, but they're realized working with communities, with partners, with allies, with family, with people who affirm your vision, who will support you when you're tired, when you're drained, when you're depressed. And I think it goes with my own saying earlier that they have those support systems for your own care, but also the care of your visions and the visions you carry from your ancestors. I mean, his holiness spoke to the needs of education, but also how the Tibetan people have held on to their history for hundreds of years. And I think curing our histories, curing the hopes of the people who came before us, that's sustaining. And you're part of that continuum. You're carrying those hopes in people, family you never knew, that's inside of you, inside your vision. And may I add also though, some of your, there is such a thing as historical trauma and cultural trauma that has to be addressed as well, when you have a whole community that has been displaced or who has suffered, sometimes it's very hard and you have to revisit an understanding of who you are as a people and reframe chuchi mata, I say, wash the eyes and remind yourselves of your strength and your bounty. I really wanna also, speaking to what you were mentioning, I think that Dalai Lama also really did a good job of, in addition to inner peace, and in addition to his emphasis on inner peace, the Dalai Lama also I think, spoke about peace in action. And I think that what distinguishes many of you, young leaders from others, is that you really are reframing and rebranding peace as action oriented, so success comes from the little things you do and you have a very multifaceted definition of peace. It's not just one thing, it's not just the absence of conflict, it is about women's rights, it is about negotiation, it is about safety and security, and challenging extremism, but it's also about cultural survival and it's about gender and much more. And so the idea is that each of you has a part to play, a role and a piece of the puzzle. And the idea I think is you find success in making the small changes and it's about peace as lived daily, bit by bit in the work that you do, in the way that you walk, in the person that you are and in the way that you speak and you can feel successful and whole even if you are planting seeds under whose trees you may never see. I think just by looking at the work and the actions of a given day. Thanks Maya, that's really helpful. There was another hand out here. Yes, please. Thank you, my name is Lupai from South Sudan. I'm trying to go back to the earlier question about how we can measure our success. You know there are a couple of activities that we've been doing and a lot of things that we sometimes do and when people start talking about what you're doing, at least that's the measure, that's the kind of sense to say that what you're doing is having an impact in the community. So most of the times we do engage in peace building activities and there may be stopped by like government or maybe other security forces and stuff like that. But then the fact that there's already somebody trying to block what you're doing, to me that's already part of the success story. That means somebody is already noticing what you're doing and however negative they take it, it's now your positivity inside you that keeps driving it. So when you organize an event and then people turn up for it, for example it's a dialogue, people turn up for it, that's a measure of success. So whether it's a resistance that is coming in from authorities or other people around, that's one way we measure. That means somebody is already noticing the work you're doing and already you're on the right path. That's the fascinating way of looking at it, that the kind of the dark forces are paying attention so you know you must be doing something right. Another question here. Yeah, thank you very much. My name is Suleiman and I'm from Afghanistan. Actually as we all know, we all in my community people are suffering lots of challenge and troubles and problems nowadays and even in several years past. They are losing nowadays their hopes because of their society attack, their terror killing of people, even innocent children there. But I asked this question and I shared my opinion with his wholeness but he said one thing very positive thing and shared it with me and when I go back home and in my community I will share this one with all my friends and all the people who are living around me. He said that whenever you are in a dark place and when you think that there are doors all closed but never lose your hope because maybe an angel come and will help you and you should be so optimism and optimistic. In this case I got that message that when we keep our hopes then we may go further and if we lose our hopes it's the time that we may end put an end in our life. So he mentioned that if you keep your hopes and if you remain optimistic in this case you will for sure get a result and will you for sure reach on the position on the goal and the curve position that you are having in your mind and you are planning on that. In this case this is a big message for me whenever I go back my home I will for sure share this topic and this issue that we have to be optimistic because of all the bad things happening around us we should not lose our hopes and our beliefs in peace when they will reach us and of course one day we may have a good country and a peaceful country. Thank you. That's a terrific way of looking at it. Yes it was, yes go ahead. Hi, I am Nam and I am Myanmar. As you all know that Myanmar is also one of the world longest civil war and we live in a traumatized society so linked to what Maya said and all my friends I want to address like what his holiness inspire me like he inspire me not to drag in the past so we have to be present to move on to be for working for a better future and like we have to have a genuine compassion so and I think he used a lot of compassion and wisdom to have to work for we not only we are having compassion we also have to have wisdom to have wisdom so we have to educate people and education is not focusing on our materialistic we have to focus on changing our inner mind to be healthy in insight so that's why combining to wisdom and education so we can move forward and we can cut the traumatized society and we can forget or we can have a forgiveness since we might get inner peace we have to try as a peace leader like I always remind myself what Voda said that peace comes from within, do not see it with us so as a peace leader if we don't have a inner peace inside ourselves how can we contribute for our society so it inspires me a lot. Yeah, so I remember there was one comment that the other mama made that I wrote down struck me was that on the issue of trying to be a success trying to measure success one simple thing that he said was that pessimism is a source of defeat but optimism is a source of success so there you go we have another question or comment. So my name is Casey Ecomoa from the Central African Republic and I just wanted to add a point on how we measure success. I remember that when I start to work on peace building field I didn't take time to think about how I measure my success and it was really in the same mindset that the Dalai Lama asked us to be it's like I was planting my beans I would say and I don't think about how many people are trained or how many people are received like I don't know the document during the training or whatever but then as young peace builder we also have to deal with like donors you know people we work with and the system the mechanism in which we are involved at you know with the donors put us like to forget about those small things and so talking about I mean the point that the Dalai Lama raised really took me back to the fact that I also have to go back to the person that I was before at some point even though I still need to be you know to think about how to report to the donor at some point but I think so like taking you know going back to that kind of humility in the way I work and on the field is important. So for my peers I would say that maybe more and more we have to think it's not so much about like the number of people you train and other people you touch but it's about it's about the number of people who stay and come back even though there's no paradigm even though there's no like big, I mean even though it's not a big thing but the number of people who go and back to the event you organize or to the training you organize the second thing is like we have to celebrate our small success. By celebrating our small success I'm thinking about like promoting not just our work but also the work of young people whose you know benefit from training that we organize by promoting the other I think it will open space how peers need role model and we have an important role to play to develop and promote those role model. Thank you. Yeah, excellent. As he said one can become 10, 10 can become 100 and that's how we move forward. Yes, another question. Thank you. Hello everyone. I'm Sherry from Afghanistan. I have a question and my question refers to Maya. Thanks Maya for being and for the great support you provide for peaceful lives. You're discussing topics as resolving conflicts and changing behaviors. Since what I do in Afghanistan is very much related to changing behaviors through civic reason, extremism. Some experts say that the main reason and that youth are derived to extremism and violence are not the weak economy or insecurity but this is because they're excluded. This is because that youth believe that they're not well represented. What are your thoughts on this and how we better include these youth? Thank you. Thank you. I agree wholeheartedly that all of the research that I have explored has indicated that the main reason that people move to extreme positions is they don't have a sense of belonging, they don't have a sense of purpose, a sense of community. That's why programs like yours are so important and the fact that you can inspire other young people to find a sense of leadership and purpose. There's a lot of work that I've done for instance with mediation programs where I put the gang leader as the mediator because it's really about putting someone who wants the attention, who has a voice and is probably dynamic and charismatic and changing the way that they see themselves. And I think that a lot of young people who move towards extremism, it's because they haven't been given an opportunity or a vision of themselves that is productive, that is powerful. They haven't been told that their actions are a soothing balm and that they can be heroes. And so a lot of it is about the messaging that they're receiving not just in religious spaces but also in educational spaces and in community spaces. I believe that there is a wonderful opportunity to recruit youth through the kind of work that you're doing, championing and embodying. There is a need to I think change the definition of courage just like we might change the definition of manhood, right? Courage is not holding a gun and running into a danger. Courage is not jumping out of a plane. It's really about taking a long walk down a road where you don't know the destination and you're hungry and you're thirsty but you don't know where you can rest and you keep going anyway. So I thank you all for your courage and hope that you work with other young people to find the same. This is a room that is I think is bursting with courage and we're so privileged as a panel. I wanna thank Jimmy and Maya and Wadi and Morone and I wanna thank all of you for participating and for the work you do. It gives all of us hope and that's what we all can hope to rely on moving forward at these dangerous times. This has been a stimulating discussion I think and thank you for watching and we invite you to continue the discussion at hashtag USIP Gen Change. Thanks very much.