Seeking Experts & Families for 2021 Live International Family Dialogues!

Learning Life, a nonprofit education and citizen engagement lab based in Washington DC, USA, leads a Family Diplomacy Initiative (FDI) that connects families across the world free to share and learn together via a Facebook group and live online dialogues.  In the long-term, FDI aims to spread family diplomacy, and engage families in governance to nurture a more caring, connected world.  

In 2021, families have the opportunity to participate in a series of six live international family dialogues via Zoom at 12:00-1:30pm EST (NYC/DC time) on Sundays, June 27, July 25, August 15, September 12, October 10 and November 14 focused on the question “what do families worldwide need to be safe and healthy?”  The six dialogues will each focus on different forces influencing family safety and health 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 safety 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, early childhood education, leisure patterns and trends, literacy, media usage, gender and class inequalities, etc.   

For each of the six dialogues, we are aiming to have (A) 1-2 experts who can speak briefly (10 minutes each) and informatively to the topic, and (B) 2-3 families that briefly (5 minutes each) offer their experience on one or more issues.  The goal here is not to cover everything in depth, but rather to provide a selection of facts, issues and perspectives to help enrich and guide the families’ conversation.  

Those experts and families (two or more members of one family living together) qualified and kindly willing to volunteer to speak on one or more of the above topics can email Learning Life at email@learninglife.info with their resume/CV (in the case of experts), topics they can speak on, and city and country of residence, plus 4-5 times in the coming 1-2 weeks that they are available to meet to learn more.  

Anyone wishing to just participate in the dialogues should first fill out this pre-dialogues survey. The survey should take no more than 20 minutes to complete.