Fifth 2021 International Family Dialogue Focuses on Politics

This Sunday, October 10, more than 40 people from 15+ countries (Venezuela, Costa Rica, Mexico, USA, Trinidad & Tobago, Italy, Nigeria, Uganda, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and China, etc.) joined Learning Life for the fifth of six live international family dialogues via Zoom focused on the question: how does politics impact family health and safety?

The six-dialogues series is part of the Family Diplomacy Initiative, Learning Life’s flagship program devoted to connecting families across borders to share and learn together. The October 10 dialogue started with a brief video about the dialogues, then some context from Learning Life’s founder, Paul Lachelier, then discussion of a variety of political issues impacting families, including war, refugee crises, religious discrimination, corruption, authoritarian rule, oppression of LGBTQ people, restrictive adoption laws, health insurance coverage for families, and more.

To view the full video-recorded dialogue, click here.

All six family dialogues are free, and are held, in English, on Sundays, 12:00-1:30pm EST (New York time) via Zoom. Each dialogue has a different date and topic as follows:

June 27: Global Trends in Family Life: How are families changing worldwide, and how does this impact family health and security?  Topics might include global patterns and trends in family demographics, parenting, childhood, family life, aspirations and viewpoints, etc.

July 25: Health Care Systems: How do health care systems shape family health and security?  What exists and what’s lacking in local-to-global health care institutions? What are some of the major global health trends, threats, and some of the most promising large-scale solutions?

August 15: Work & Economics: How do economic forces affect family health and security?  Topics might include work and unemployment, workplace safety, automation, income and wealth inequality, economic migration and remittances, work-life balance, etc.

September 12: The Environment: How do natural and man-made environmental conditions, local to global, impact family health and security?  Topics might include home and neighborhood crime and safety, community life, green space, housing and segregation, transportation, pollution, climate change, etc.

October 10: Politics: How do local to global politics influence family health and security?  Topics might include government service provision, leadership, civil society, governmental power inequalities between and within nations, immigration and refugee policy, war, human rights, rule of law, corruption, legal discrimination, etc.

November 14: Education & Leisure: How do education and leisure time activities influence family health and security? Topics might include formal and informal education, leisure patterns and trends, literacy, early childhood education, gender and class inequalities, etc.

To participate in the dialogues, please complete this pre-dialogues survey. The survey offers more information plus the Zoom link for all the dialogues. Note: Because these are family dialogues, we encourage (but do not require) you to participate with one or more members of your family in the same room, whether siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins, in-laws or other family members. If family members are not available or willing, please invite one or more friends or housemates. Everyone who plans to attend at least one of the six family dialogues should fill out the pre-survey linked above.