In late March, we had the pleasure of participating in the Global Ties U.S. National Meeting, titled “(Re)Building Community: Globally and Locally” in Washington D.C. Executive Director, Heidi Knuff, and Program Associate, Julia Masias, attended the conference to share best practices, experiences, and upcoming programs with a variety of other Community Based Members (CBM) within the Global Ties network across the country.
Additionally, I attended as a member of the 2023 Emerging Leaders, a Global Ties leadership program for promising interns and young citizen diplomats. I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Ukraine and a recent graduate from the University of San Diego with an MA in Peace and Justice, and have demonstrated excellence with the San Diego Diplomacy Council through our Global Leadership Youth Program (GLYP) international relations sessions, Global Youth Collaborative (GYC) youth programs, our many IVLP delegations and study tours, and any additional task that is required of me.
Along with presenting achievements from my time with SDDC, Emerging Leaders are asked to complete a community development project in their communities, with support from Global Ties and community partners. My project will connect San Diego youth (GLYP alumni, GYC participants, and others) with youth from the city youth center in my home, Drohobych, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. Titled “Culture, Community, and Conflict”, I will have the American and Ukrainian groups describe their respective cultures as if you knew nothing about it so that participants receive a specific cultural perspective from the other. Next, participants will describe and map out their communities, sharing where they spend their time, where they live, where they work, demographics, transportation, social capital, what the education is like, if students attend university in their city, what resources are available, etc. Finally, participants will describe a conflict in their community, one that is a shared experience and local. In turn, the respective groups will attempt to solve the conflict using the previous mapping and description activity. They will identify resources, physical infrastructure, relationships, potential collaborations, and other ideas that could be used to properly overcome and address the conflict. They will propose this to the opposite group and discuss the strengths and opportunities of the solutions and clarify any existing questions. This project is meant to provide cultural exchange for youth (especially significant due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), give students a mental and physical map of what other communities are like, and provide conflict resolution and community development skills that are so important in diplomacy and peacebuilding.
I learned with and heard from other Emerging Leaders colleagues, members of the Global Ties community, International relations professionals, and diplomats on how to best implement projects and provide a local, yet global, focus on civic engagement. The National Meeting hosted sessions on regional issues in Eurasia, professional development, DEIA, youth engagement, and project management that better prepared me for the project and a future career in peacebuilding. I so happy that Heidi, Julia, and myself were able to participate in the National Meeting, and am looking forward to the success and development that comes from it!
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