2025 Family Diplomacy Dialogues Launch March 1
Join Learning Life via Zoom Sunday, March 1, 12-1pm (New York time), for the first of nine monthly Family Diplomacy (FD) Dialogues in 2025!
From March to November 2025, on the first Sunday of each month at 12-1pm ET (New York / Washington DC time), through the FD Dialogues, participants will learn about families and family life across the world through participants’ presentations. Each meeting will feature five minute presentations from two participants, each from a different country, and each presentation followed by discussion where participants get a chance to ask questions, or comment (e.g., connecting the presenter’s presentation with the participant’s own family experience) via Zoom chat text.
If you would like to present at an upcoming dialogue, please email us at email@learninglife.info and let us know your city/town and country. You are encouraged to present with one or more members of your family since this is family diplomacy. You should share photos, or slides with family photos and explanatory text, and answer these questions during your presentation:
- What are your family members’ names and relationship to you (mother, brother, grandfather, etc.)?
- In what city/ies and/or town(s) and country/ies does your family live?
- What is something interesting about your family (extraordinary experience, quirky traditions or routines, something distinctive about a family member or ancestor, etc.)?
- Any interesting cultural observations you would like to share about family life in your country?
- Optional, but encouraged: Does your family face any challenge(s), and if so, how is your family responding to the challenge(s)? Learning Life is interested in identifying families facing poverty, war, climate change, gender-based violence, or problems stemming from internet access (bullying, addiction, scams, mental or social health issues, etc.) to build international family networks on those issues, but discussion of other family issues is welcome.
“The FD Dialogues are a simple, accessible, personal and participatory way to regularly practice family diplomacy, by connecting people online across countries and other lines of difference, to talk about one of the most basic, important, and widely valued institutions: the family,” explains Learning Life’s founder, Paul Lachelier. “The Dialogues should serve to engage more people across the world in family diplomacy as Learning Life continues to build the FDI network worldwide.”
The FD Dialogues are part of Learning Life’s Family Diplomacy Initiative. FDI is an ambitious, grassroots effort to connect, train and empower a growing international corps of volunteer family diplomats (FDs) and Family Diplomacy Ambassadors (FDAs) to participate in decision-making at local to global levels. We envision a world more connected and caring because every family has one or more FDs and FDAs networked with others across the globe, and these citizen diplomats together advocate effectively for the needs, concerns and aspirations of families worldwide via nonprofits, businesses, media and governments.
Want to be notified about the dialogues? Sign up for the email Family Diplomacy Dispatch, and join FDI on Facebook, and you will get dialogue dates and updates, plus interesting information about family life worldwide.
