30/08/2026
URI-MENA Launches Phase 2 of NextGen Peacebuilders Fellowship: Leading with Courage and Curiosity with a Session on Building and Exploring Trust
The MENA NextGen Peacebuilders Fellowship, a flagship youth leadership initiative of the United Religions Initiative in the Middle East and North Africa (URI-MENA), has officially launched the second phase of its eight-month fellowship journey. Titled “Leading with Courage and Curiosity,” the new phase builds on the foundations established during the first phase and aims to equip emerging peacebuilders across the region with practical tools to navigate deep-seated differences, rebuild fractured trust, and transform dialogue into meaningful, localized community action.
As part of the URI Learning Ecosystem, the second phase is designed to support religious, spiritual, and community leaders in translating inner capacities—particularly courage, curiosity, empathy, and openness—into meaningful and collaborative action within increasingly diverse and pluralistic societies. It brings together emerging religious, spiritual, and civic leaders from across the Middle East & North Africa.
The first session of the second phase, held on 19 August 2026, placed trust-building at the center of the learning journey, exploring how trust is formed, how it can be damaged, and how it can be intentionally rebuilt within individuals, relationships, and communities.
Building and Exploring Trust
Led by Dr. Anwaar Kataia, an expert in interfaith and intercultural dialogue, the session introduced participants to a range of practical frameworks for understanding the dynamics of trust, conflict, communication, and relationships in diverse community settings.
The session explored three key frameworks:
The “Stone” Framework: Participants examined trust through four interconnected pillars: Identity, History, Values, and Vulnerability. The framework highlights how trust can become fragile when any of these dimensions is ignored, excluded, or devalued, particularly in contexts marked by diverse identities and complex histories.
The Johari Window: Participants explored this model as a tool for strengthening transparency, self-awareness, and communication within groups. Through self-disclosure, active listening, and constructive feedback, participants considered how to expand the Open Area, reduce blind spots, and create stronger foundations for mutual understanding and trust.
The Iceberg Principle: The framework encouraged participants to distinguish between the visible aspects of conflict and the deeper issues that often remain beneath the surface. Fellows explored how unspoken fears, needs, assumptions, emotions, past experiences, and unresolved grievances can shape individual and community relationships, even when they are not immediately visible.
From Theory to Practice: Experiential Learning
A central feature of the session was its strong emphasis on experiential learning and practical application. Rather than engaging with the frameworks solely at a theoretical level, participants were invited to connect them to their own experiences and to real challenges encountered in their communities.
Through the Johari Window exercise, participants explored all four quadrants—Open, Blind, Hidden, and Unknown—and identified practical steps for increasing appropriate self-disclosure, reducing their Hidden Area, and seeking constructive feedback from others to become more aware of potential blind spots.
Using the Iceberg Model, fellows reflected on recent conflicts within their communities, distinguishing between visible, surface-level issues and the deeper concerns beneath them. They considered how unresolved fears, unmet needs, historical experiences, assumptions, and emotions can continue to influence relationships long after the immediate issue appears to have been resolved.
Participants also engaged in Trust and Conflict Reframing, reflecting on personal and community experiences in which trust had been damaged, particularly when defensive reactions contributed to escalation. They explored how alternative responses based on active listening, empathy, curiosity, and a genuine willingness to understand different perspectives could transform moments of tension into opportunities for rebuilding trust.
These exercises enabled participants to move from understanding concepts to applying them, while encouraging them to identify practical ways of integrating trust-building approaches into their own peacebuilding work.
From Courage and Curiosity to Community Action
The second phase builds on the fellowship’s broader learning-to-action approach, recognizing that sustainable peacebuilding requires more than technical knowledge. It also requires the personal capacities to remain engaged in situations of uncertainty, difference, and tension.
Curiosity invites peacebuilders to ask questions, listen deeply, challenge assumptions, and seek to understand perspectives different from their own. Courage enables them to remain present in difficult conversations, address uncomfortable realities, and take constructive action even when outcomes are uncertain.
By bringing these qualities together, the fellowship seeks to help emerging leaders develop a more relational and reflective approach to peacebuilding—one that places trust, dialogue, empathy, and meaningful action at the centre of their engagement with communities.
Looking Ahead
The fellowship will continue its virtual learning journey with two upcoming sessions: “Curiosity Across Difference” on 2 September and “Finding Courage” on 16 September 2026. Together, these sessions will deepen participants’ ability to engage constructively across differences, navigate difficult conversations, and respond to challenging situations with greater courage, empathy, and curiosity.
The virtual learning phase will culminate in an in-person retreat in Istanbul in late September, where fellows will build on their learning and translate it into action by designing and developing localized peacebuilding initiatives tailored to the needs and realities of their home communities.
Through this progression from learning and personal development to practical leadership and community action, the MENA NextGen Peacebuilders Fellowship is supporting a new generation of regional peacebuilders to turn trust, courage, and curiosity into tangible pathways for peacebuilding across the MENA region.
