Peaceful Futures
Welcome to Peaceful Futures!
Cultivating the Next Generation of Young Peacebuilders
According to Crisis Group, with 183 ongoing conflicts reported in 2023, the need for effective peacebuilding strategies is more urgent than ever. This urgency is echoed by the Youth Talks global survey, which engaged over 46,000 young people and revealed “Peace” as their foremost priority. The United Nations has also declared Peace Education a priority for 2024.
The “Peaceful Futures” programme, a joint initiative of Global Education Futures and the Learning Planet Institute, aligned with UNESCO, aims to train and empower hundreds of young leaders worldwide, fostering true artisans of peace.
Built around the co-design and acceleration of sustainable and scalable peacebuilding change projects tailored to their local contexts, the programme is based on strategic foresight thinking, conflict transformation tools, and a peace-oriented mindset.
Its purpose is to equip young peacebuilders with hands-on skills to address the root causes of conflicts and promote long-term harmony.
Programme overview
A 6-month pilot, a precursor to the full programme, includes:
- Online educational programme with webinars, podcasts, and Master classes for young leaders.
- Training the first cohort of young leaders to develop local change projects.
- Providing ongoing support and mentorship to selected leaders.
- An initial global community of practice for ongoing support.
- Open-source knowledge database of best practices and tools.
- Media campaigns to promote the project and its impact.
- Evaluation plans with continuous assessments, progress reviews, and final evaluations, including community impact metrics.
Young change-makers participants' profile
The programme targets young leaders aged 18-35 with experience in social entrepreneurship and/or NGO work.
Peaceful Futures will prioritise participants from high-tension and recovering from conflict regions from the Global South and respect gender diversity.
This profile describes you?
Join community of practice & Waiting list of the Peaceful Futures!
Reasons to support Peaceful Futures
- The project is grounded in proven existing methodologies and supported by a strong network of global experts. Its focus on youth and local initiatives ensures relevance and sustainability.
- To mitigate potential risks such as political instability, cultural resistance, and local challenges, we have taken measures, including regional stakeholders, core partnership networks, and a community of practice, to ensure flexible strategies and project support.
- Your funding will enable high-impact, scalable initiatives that address urgent global needs.
The programme provides clear objectives, team expertise and measurable outcomes.
Goals for the 2025 edition
- Empowerment of a network of 150 young leaders with conflict transformation and strategic foresight tools.
- Initiating peacebuilding projects with robust guidance and mentorship.
- Fostering a community of practice – 250 experts, social entrepreneurs, and young leaders to exchange knowledge and collaborate.
- Positively impacting the quality of life for 5,000 people and indirectly touching up to 200’000 more through media outreach and partnerships.
To request full presentation and/or support Peaceful Futures
Three further project phases include a more expansive programme
Train 500+ young change-makers worldwide and provide extensive mentoring by global experts for 100 active and motivated leaders, impacting 15,000 people within communities with a strong media outreach.
Accelerate over 50 “positive peace” change projects with personalised mentorship and support, directly impacting up to 50,000 people within local communities and reaching out to up to 1,75M through media support (in addition to recurring Phase 1).
Establish 5 thematic “peaceful futures” competence hubs around the world to support 250+ projects of “positive peace” per year (in addition to recurring phases 1 & 2).
Peaceful Futures at the LearningPlanet Festival 2025
In the Mood for Peaceful Futures – Part 1: Asia, Africa & Europe
In the Mood for Peaceful Futures – Part 2: South and North America
Cultivating the Next Generation of Young Peacebuilders – In the Context of the UNESCO Chair
Leading organisations
Core team
Olivier BRECHARD
Partnerships Coordination
Learning Planet Institute
Anastasia EVGRAFOVA
Marketing & Communications
Global Education Futures
Pavel LUKSHA, PhD
Content & Learning Methodology
Global Education Futures
Ilia LYSENKO
Project Management
Learning Planet Institute
Senior Expert Team
Mandar APTE
Executive Director
Cities4Peace
Gaby ARENAS
Founder
Fundación TAAP
Aart BOS
Global Leadership
MasterPeace Foundation
Catalina COCK DUQUE
Co-founder & President
Fundación Mi Sangre
Raghda ELHALAWANY
Co-Director
MasterPeace Foundation
David GERSHON
Director of Research
The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research (LINPR)
Jan HURWITCH
Executive Director
Fundacion Etica Visionaria
Yiannis LAOURIS
Lead Scientist
Future Worlds Center
Alexander LASZLO, Ph.D
Director of Research
The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research (LINPR)
Anne-Marie VOORHOEVE
Founder & Strategic Connector
The Hague Center for Global Governance, Innovation and Emergence
Our partners
AIME
Cities4Peace
Compassion Games: Survival of the Kindest
Fundación EcoConciencia
Fundación Etica Visionaria
Fundación Mi Sangre
MasterPeace
Peace on Earth by 2030
Salzburg Global Seminar
Fundación TAAP
The Hague Center for Global Governance, Innovation and Emergence
YouthxYouth
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As part of the Learning Planet Festival 2025, a joint initiative of the Learning Planet Institute and UNESCO to celebrate
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Cultivating the Next Generation of Young Peacebuilders – Lookback on the UNESCO Chair in Learning Sciences Session
Co-created and moderated by Pavel Luksha, Founder and Director of Global Education Futures, the Cultivating the Next Generation of Young Peacebuilders session explores how to enhance and scale education for peace by fostering synergies between institutions, researchers, educators, on-the-ground practitioners, and youth peacebuilders, ensuring its transformative impact reaches every corner of society.
Fostering Peaceful Futures: Education, Innovation, and Youth at the LearningPlanet Festival 2025
This year, in its sixth edition, in person in Paris and online worldwide, the Festival united a global coalition of youth leaders, educators, researchers, and peacebuilders to reimagine a peaceful future in a collaborative, innovative and actionable way.
Youth Voices at the Forefront: LearningPlanet Festival 2025
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Le « Festival de l’Apprendre » qui se tenait les 23 et 24 janvier dans le cadre de la journée mondiale de l’Éducation a souhaité donner prioritairement la parole à des femmes résolument engagées en faveur de l’éducation à la Paix.
Press Info – Recap of the LearningPlanet Festival 2025
The LearningPlanet Festival once again brought together thousands of participants worldwide to engage with Education and major societal challenges. The 2025 theme, “Co-designing a better world for and with the next generation” highlighted inspiring and innovative initiatives aimed at transforming Education and building a peaceful and sustainable future with and for young people.
