Discovering & Actualizing Our Gifts as Peace Leaders
“This course has truly enriched my capacity to contribute meaningfully to peacebuilding, not as a task, but as a purpose-led way of being.”
Euphrates has a growing community of peace leaders through the Peace Practice Alliance (PPA) program, with 163 alumni across 50 countries. More than simply alumni, this community are seasoned, passionate, and evolving peace leaders, committed to continued learning, practice, and individual and collective growth. To support these leaders beyond the PPA program, Euphrates offers short courses, serving as deep dives into specialized peace leadership topics and practices.
In October 2024, Euphrates piloted a new course for PPA alumni, Discovering and Actualizing Our Gifts as Peace Leaders. A group of 15 peace leaders from 9 countries came together through a 5-week intimate journey of self-discovery with community support. This course supported leaders in identifying, honing, and embodying one’s gifts, values, and desired commitments in peace practice and social change. Through self-assessments, deep reflection, and live group sessions, this course provided an intentional space to focus on innate gifts to nourish and uplift, and an intimate group of peers to support each other. Peace leaders developed a deeper sense of self, tools for self-reflection, integrity, and accountability, and renewed and clarified commitments and action plans for how to apply their gifts in peacebuilding work.
Together, we began with an exploration of integrity. Ongoing self-reflection and mindful self-awareness are continually critical to our efforts and commitments as peace leaders. Equipped with a foundational understanding of peacebuilding and leadership through the PPA, peace leaders began with self-exploration, asking “who am I being and who do I want to be?” Integrity is an undercurrent through all of our peace leadership efforts. It connects us to our own virtues, principles, and morals, guiding our decisions and actions to be in compatible, harmonious relationships with others and the Earth. Discovering, actualizing, and utilizing our gifts must begin from a center of integrity. We explored integrity as foundational to our practice, and what integrity means across cultures.
We then worked on identifying personal blind spots and self-imposed limitations that hinder personal growth. We analyzed how these blind spots influence our perceptions of our strengths and gifts, and reflected on the ways these limitations have shaped our life choices and behaviors. We discovered and developed strategies to break free from self-imposed constraints and better utilize our personal gifts.
We opened our curiosity on the differences between strengths and gifts, and discovered one’s gifts in peace practice work. When we allow ourselves to cherish and follow our gifts, we live into our true selves and integrity. Through appreciative inquiry, we uncovered where and how our strengths serve us, how they may limit us, what our gifts are, how we can allow them to shine, and how following our gifts aligns us with our integrity.
Finally, we articulated our personal commitments in peace practice and social change. We explored the intersections of where one’s gifts thrive and the issues one feels passionate about and wants to address. We each created goals beyond ourselves, and collectively created a tapestry of peace commitments with accountability and integrity.
Through an end of course evaluation, we learned that 100% of respondents think the course will help them improve their peacebuilding work, and 100% of respondents agree the course was successful in supporting them in discovering and actualizing their gifts as peacebuilders.
This was a powerful month of deep questioning, reflection, curiosity, openness, and discovery, held with immense care, generosity, humility, and love. Peace leaders shared the most valuable lessons learned from the course ranging from identifying one’s gifts, opening to one’s blind spots and strategies for navigating them, how to use one’s gifts as a leader in their community, and shifting one’s mindset “to be” rather than “to have.” Peace leaders also shared insights on how this course will impact their peacebuilding work moving forward, including holding deeper self-awareness, empathy, and resilience, harnessing inner strengths to better serve and inspire others, being better equipped to support others in starting their peacebuilding journeys, having renewed courage and conviction, and building stronger relationships and communities both amongst PPA alumni and within our respective communities.
We are excited this course served as the start of a new chapter in our alumni engagement and development. We look forward to designing and leading new courses for alumni, and working with alumni to lead their own workshops and courses for each other, as well! Please stay tuned for future alumni updates, including an exciting course launching in late winter/early spring 2025!
Participant Reflections
“In Discovering and Actualizing Your Gifts, I learned that recognizing both my strengths and my blind spots was essential for personal growth and effective peace-building. Through the course, I identified certain strengths—like empathy, creativity, and resilience—that I can intentionally use to connect with others and address conflicts constructively. Equally important was uncovering my blind spots, areas where I tend to overlook my own limitations or biases. This awareness helped me see where I might unintentionally disrupt harmony or misunderstand others. By embracing both my strengths and blind spots, I am now better equipped to approach peace-building with humility, authenticity, and a more balanced perspective.”
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“This course will impact my peacebuilding work moving forward because it has opened me up to my potential. I have a deep sense of conviction about my abilities and a renewed courage to make my mark has emerged.”
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“The most valuable lesson I learned from the course was the importance of self-nurturing and inner peace in the work of peacebuilding. It further deepened my understanding that in order to be truly effective as a peacebuilder and advocate, I must first be grounded in my own wholeness. This means not just intellectually understanding peace, but embodying it—creating space for self-compassion, self-awareness, and reflection…This lesson has transformed how I view my role as a peacebuilder. I no longer see myself as a source that needs to constantly give, but as a vessel that must first be filled with peace, creativity, and love in order to pour that into the world. This deeper understanding will guide my approach to future peacebuilding work, ensuring I operate from a place of inner strength, authenticity, and sustained impact.”
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“Moving forward, I intend to integrate these practices of self-compassion, intentional solitude, and deep listening into my peacebuilding work. I’ve come to see that peace is not simply the absence of conflict; it is an inner resilience and clarity that can transform even the most challenging circumstances. Equipped with this renewed perspective, I can approach my advocacy work not merely as a legal professional but as a true advocate, someone rooted in wholeness and empathy, committed to a vision of justice and compassion.”