Take Part in Family Diplomacy Issue Presentations

Want to:

develop your experience in public presentation?
deepen your knowledge about how war, poverty, climate change, the internet, and/or gender-based violence are impacting your family, community and country?
Connect with people in different countries and better understand your world?
Help advance family diplomacy for a more caring world?

If so, then participate in Learning Life’s Family Diplomacy Issue Presentations once monthly July to November, live internationally via Zoom this year. Each meeting will be 1.5 hours. The first meeting on July 14, 11am-12:30pm ET (Washington DC / New York time), will introduce participants to the Issue Presentations and answer any questions. The second to fifth/final meetings — Sundays, August 11, September 8, October 13, and November 10, same time — will feature up to three issue presentations, each focused on one (or more, if the issues are interconnected) of five major issues impacting families across the world: war, poverty, climate change, the internet, and/or gender-based violence. Each of the up to twelve presenters will present on how one or more of the five issues impacts their family and other families in their community and/or country. Each presenter will speak for 15 minutes, followed by 10-15 minutes of feedback from the audience of fellow presenters plus volunteers.

Because this is family diplomacy, in determining who will present, highest priority will be given to two or more members of the same family who present together, and participate in the five sessions together. Second highest priority will be given to our current Family Diplomats (FDs), that is, those individuals worldwide who have completed Learning Life’s storytelling training in 2022 and/or 2023. Any remaining presenters will be chosen among others who complete the FD Presentations Pre-Survey. In all cases, we will strive for diversity of the presenters by country and the five issues to ensure that all or most of the issues are covered in the up to twelve presentations this year.

Everyone worldwide is eligible to take part in the Family Diplomacy Issue Presentations so long as (a) you are able and willing to present in English, (b) have strong enough internet to be able to present by video, and (c) you are committed to attending at least four of the five sessions. You do not have to present to participate since, as a presentation evaluator, you will benefit by listening and providing feedback to the presenters.

Since our focus here is on deepening your knowledge on the five issues in red above, and their impact on families, your presentations should (a) be well researched using legitimate sources (commonly, that’s government, academic/university, established news, research and think tank sources), and (b) preferably include slides (you can email us photos and else ahead of time in one document to show for you), to allow you to present data, images, and other information that helps your audience better understand how the issue(s) impact your family, community and country.

Whether you present or not, all those who (a) attend AND participate in at least four of the five sessions, (b) fill out the sessions pre-survey before August 11, and (c) complete the post-survey by November 17, will be eligible for a Family Diplomacy Issue Presentations Certificate of Completion, emailed electronically. The pre- and post-surveys will, through one open-ended question, measure knowledge you gained over the course of the four presentation meetings in August to November. Up to three of the up to twelve presenters whose scores significantly improve will receive cash awards of $100.

We track attendance and participation carefully at each meeting. Those who show up to any meeting more than 10 minutes late or leave more than 10 minutes early may not be counted as attending. In turn, participation means contributing at least once per meeting to providing feedback to and/or asking questions of the presenters, in writing via the Zoom chat or in spoken words.

The Family Diplomacy Issue Presentations cost $100 for non-presenting participants, and $150 for presenting participants. To incentivize families participating together, two or more members of the same family who participate together pay the same price as an individual. Payment is based on an honor system though: if you cannot pay $100 or $150, pay what you can. We trust you to pay an amount you can afford that helps Learning Life put on this program. Pay your program fee here by credit card, or bank account ACH transfer. At the payment page, make sure to type “FD Issue Presentations fee” in the “Note” box. If you need to pay via another platform, Learning Life also accepts payments via Paypal.

The Family Diplomacy Issue Presentations are part of Learning Life’s Family Diplomacy Initiative. FDI connects people worldwide across lines of country, class, race and religion via the internet to share and learn together about families and citizen diplomacy with an eye to developing a corps of trained family diplomats to advocate for a more caring world via media, businesses, nonprofits and governments.