Two iconic In the MOOD for Peaceful Futures sessions at the LearningPlanet Festival 2025 explore how impactful on-the-ground initiatives can contribute to building peaceful societies. Organised in close collaboration with Global Education Futures, they bring together experts in peacebuilding – true artisans of peace from across the globe. These successful efforts to be featured in the Atlas of Peaceful Futures – a dynamic, open directory of transformative grassroots practices fostering “positive peace” across communities, economies, and governance systems.
The Atlas is more than just a collection of mapped initiatives; it is a living resource and a launchpad to inspire and empower young peacebuilders globally to foster social impact by transforming local conflicts and developing a culture of peace. From education and social-emotional learning to community-led conflict resolution, the conversation provides a blueprint for how peacebuilding efforts can scale and sustain long-term change.
The first session features diverse voices from Asia, Africa, and Europe, and the second – from North and South America, each drawing attention to the urgent need for peace-oriented education, intercultural dialogue, and co-creation with youth and marginalised communities, offering insight into how systemic approaches can transform societies.
Engaging Stakeholders for Peace
Catalina Cock, Founder and President of Fundación Mi Sangre, shares valuable insights from her work in Colombia:
For 18 years, we’ve been working to unlock young people’s potential to contribute to more peaceful, democratic, and regenerative societies. Evolving from leadership programmes focused on social-emotional skills to a systems-change approach, we understood the importance of working with a systems-change approach, involving all the actors that influence the life experience of young people.
Mi Sangre operates across three ecosystems: the school system, the community level, and multi-sectoral collaborations. Its goal is to ensure that young peacebuilders can connect with networks that sustain their impact.
“We have initiatives working towards bullying prevention, discrimination, to promote peaceful coexistence, to create awareness about gender-based violence, different kinds of issues that young people choose,” Catalina emphasises.
Kara Stonehouse, Meshworker and Graphic Facilitator at The Hague Center for Global Governance, Innovation, and Emergence, speaks about the importance of deep listening and collaboration in peacebuilding. She actively uses “meshworking”—a process that connects diverse stakeholders and ideas to create solutions for complex problems.
Instead of having keynote speakers, we flipped the narrative to keynote listeners —it makes people feel heard and valued” – she reflects. “By bringing different communities, perspectives, and knowledge systems together, we create networks of coherence that amplify peace.
The Hague Center works with youth leaders, indigenous communities, and governance bodies to ensure that diverse voices shape global peace efforts. Kara emphasises that peacebuilding must extend beyond traditional diplomacy and governance, reaching into grassroots movements and everyday interactions.
The most powerful force in the world is love, but we must learn how to organise it.
The Transformative Power of the Art and Creativity for Peacebuilding
Raghda ElHalawany, CEO of MasterPeace, brings a global perspective, sharing insights from the organisation’s work across 45 countries and describing how they engage young people through creative expression and social action.
We start with engagement through art—creating social media content and storytelling,” she says. “This builds trust, fosters dialogue, and gives young people a voice in shaping their communities.
From Nepal to Colombia, MasterPeace uses localised artistic initiatives to empower youth in post-conflict communities. Raghda underscores the need to move beyond top-down peace initiatives and advocates for grassroots, youth-led interventions.
We don’t tell young people to change the world overnight. We encourage them to start at home – do pilot projects in their community, join like-minded people, and take local action. This is how change grows.
Developing on this approach, Kristine Arzumanova, President of the International Association of Maritime and Port Executives (IAMPE), emphasises the role of theatre as a tool for conflict transformation and peacebuilding through fostering empathy. Kristine facilitates interactive performances that reflect real-world conflicts, allowing participants to experience conflict resolution in a deeply personal and engaging way.
The theatre has its unparalleled ability to bring human stories to life, enable us to step into another’s shoes and see conflict not as an abstract issue but as a personal and emotional experience,” she explains. “ We create performances that really reflect real-world conflicts… from family disputes to international tensions, fostering critical thinking, empathy—skills necessary for peaceful conflict resolution.
Through her work with IAMPE, Kristine highlights how these performances demystify and humanise disputes, from interpersonal conflicts to global tensions.
“Theatre reminds us that peace begins with conversation. It brings people together, showing that peaceful dialogue is not just possible,” she concludes.
Indigenous Pathways to Peace and Justice
Focusing on the paramount question, “Are we learning from our colleagues from the indigenous communities?” Parul Jagdish, Global Head of Impact at AIME, emphasises the critical role of indigenous knowledge in peacebuilding, urging the rethinking of education models that often exclude alternative ways of knowing and being.
Indigenous people have lived harmoniously on the land for the longest period. If someone knows how to live with peace and with long-term planning, it’s them,” he states. “The conflicts that arise today are often the result of one knowledge system or ideology thinking superior to another.
AIME’s work spans 52 countries, providing mentorship-based education that values lived experiences and bridges intergenerational gaps. Parul stresses the need to reimagine education systems that remain rigidly structured around colonial and militarised models.
Education should be about connection, mentorship, and breaking down hierarchies of knowledge—not reinforcing them,” he adds. “We must create spaces where young people from different backgrounds come together, share knowledge, and collectively shape the world they want to live in.
Continuing this narrative, Paula Drouin, a professional mediator and educator at ADR Learning Institute, reflects on the importance of integrating Indigenous practices into mainstream peacebuilding efforts.
For decades, Indigenous communities have been reclaiming their role as peacebuilders – healing intergenerational trauma, restoring justice, and advocating for self-determined approaches to conflict resolution (…) Our work is about decolonising peace education—ensuring that knowledge systems rooted in storytelling, circles, and relational accountability are valued alongside Western models.
Paula shares her journey of developing community-led mediation and peacemaking initiatives, notably the Bearpaw Peacemaking Program, which empowers Indigenous leaders to resolve conflicts through dialogue and cultural traditions.
Peace starts with the individual. If I’m at peace with myself, it’s easier to create peaceful relationships. And then it’s easier to create peaceful communities and families and expand from there.
Business for Peace: Equipping Youth with Skills for Sustainable and Peaceful Economies
Mandar Apte, Executive Director of Cities4Peace and former corporate executive, presents a business-oriented approach to peacebuilding rooted in the belief that peace and prosperity go hand in hand.
Peace and prosperity go hand in hand. Violence happens anywhere, anytime—it doesn’t look at your skin colour or your bank balance,” he asserts. “Just like someone profits from war, we need to create business models where people can profit from peace.
Mandar highlights his work training former gang members in South Central Los Angeles and facilitating dialogues between police and communities, using breathing and meditation techniques to foster empathy.
I ask the people who I teach —the gang members— ‘Have you sold drugs?’ The answer is yes. I tell them, ‘That means you know how to sell. Can you help me sell peace?
Manjula Dissanayake, Founding Executive Director of the Educate Lanka Foundation, focuses on ensuring that education is a tool for empowerment and peacebuilding, especially in post-conflict and vulnerable communities.
We have one of the highest literacy rates in the region, yet we continue to experience cycles of conflict. This tells us that traditional education alone is not enough,” Manjula states. “We must integrate critical thinking, empathy, and leadership skills into formal and non-formal education.
Manjula emphasises the need for education to go beyond traditional academics and equip young people with self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and relational skills to contribute actively to peacebuilding.
If we want youth to become peacebuilders, we must give them the tools to navigate complex realities – self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and the ability to build relationships across divides.
Peacebuilding in Displacement
Ruphin Kungwa, Lead Weaver at YouthxYouth and a refugee educator in Uganda, provides a sobering yet hopeful reflection on peace education in displacement settings. He highlights how many refugees, despite fleeing violence, continue to experience structural challenges that hinder their ability to live peacefully.
Peace isn’t just the absence of war – it’s about stability, access to education, and the ability to envision a future,” he articulates. “In refugee settlements, young people face immense obstacles – language barriers, lack of resources, and ongoing trauma. But we can still create spaces for learning, healing, and growth.
Kungwa’s work with Full Circle Learning focuses on character education, weaving values like empathy and resilience into school curricula. His message underscored the importance of local action and grassroots leadership in the peacebuilding process. “If you teach people how to steal, they will be thieves. But if you teach them how to love, they will be peacemakers. We must start there.”
Katia Martins Ramos, mediator and executive director of Câmara de Conciliação, Arbitragem e Mediação Intercultural (CCAMI), discusses the role of mediation in supporting refugees and migrants in Brazil.
Our work emerged with the intention of giving independence and recognition to Afghan refugee judges [in Brazil] (…) But it has grown to contribute to the process of building dialogue and social peace through mediation and negotiation.
CCAMI’s initiatives train refugees and immigrants as mediators, equipping them with conflict resolution skills that allow them to support others facing similar challenges. “We believe that it’s possible to improve the lives of refugees and immigrants, enabling them to develop activities similar to those in their countries of origin, with remuneration and dignity,” Katia explains.
Scaling Peace through Gamification
David Gershon, Founder of the Empowerment Institute, introduces Peace on Earth by 2030, a moonshot initiative leveraging behavioural change strategies to scale peace globally.
Peace begins with individual empowerment”, he emphasises. “If people don’t feel they have the ability to create change, they won’t try. That’s why our first step is always about building the capacity of individuals to become peace agents in their own communities.
David outlines the Peace Game, a structured programme based on seven core transformative actions designed to empower individuals as agents of peace. He underscores that large-scale change requires bold visioning: “For too long, we have let war be the default setting of humanity. If we want a different future, we need to normalise peace—make it something people actively participate in, not just hope for.”
Towards a Global Movement for Peace
The sessions conclude with a call to action: fostering peaceful futures requires radical education reimagining, amplifying youth voices, and weaving intergenerational and intercultural relationships. Speakers emphasise the need for localised, community-driven solutions while simultaneously building global networks for change.
The conversations revealed a few cross-cutting themes:
- Youth leadership and co-creation are central to building peaceful societies.
- Shifting power to communities with first-hand experience with conflict and resilience, investing in local leadership.
- Collaboration across approaches: Restorative practices, trauma-informed care, creativity, social-emotional learning, mediation and integrating peaceful economies, among many others, must be at the heart of peacebuilding efforts.
- Collaboration across cultures and generations can amplify local initiatives from the Global South and indigenous wisdom, bringing systemic change.
- Use of new technologies and AI solutions for peaceful futures.
As the world faces growing conflicts and deepening divisions, the Learning Planet Festival 2025 reinforced a critical truth: Peace is not merely the absence of violence but the active creation of systems, structures, and cultures that enable all individuals to thrive. The work of these educators, experts on conflict resolution, artists, and grassroots leaders offers a powerful blueprint for the future.
In response to this call, Learning Planet Institute and Global Education Futures are starting a joint initiative – Peaceful Futures: Cultivating the Next Generation of Young Peacebuilders programme. Together with international partners and leading experts, we aim to train and empower young leaders worldwide. Built around the co-design and acceleration of sustainable and scalable peacebuilding change projects tailored to their local contexts, the programme is based on strategic foresight thinking, conflict transformation tools, and a peace-oriented mindset.
Learn more about the programme here
Watch the full playbacks
- Part I: Asia, Africa, and Europe – View Recording
- Part II: South and North America – View Recording
