Thursday, February 2, 2017

AMENDS: We will not be shut down

A great many of you have heard me talk about AMENDS, the American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford. A week spent connecting with activists from across the region changed my life in profound ways.

Each of my three research partners (Dar Si Hmad in Morocco; the Kuwait Dive Team; and Lebanon's Media Association for Peace) are AMENDS connections. The YMCA Jerusalem Youth Chorus, whose UK tour I helped manage, was born after Forbes Under 30's Micah Hendler shared the idea at the first AMENDS Summit at Stanford University. 

AMENDS Fellows are my best friends, my closest colleagues, and my greatest hope for the world. They are people like Nihal, who works against sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo; Fadi, a young Palestinian entrepreneur whose alternative energy company is supplying the West Bank with electricity through wind power; and Ali, who brings literacy programmes to underprivileged youth in Yemen.

The 2017 AMENDS Summit is scheduled for 19-23 April at Stanford. Thanks to recent events, at least 8 of this year's incredible delegates will not be allowed entry to the US in order to spend this week sharing ideas, building their initiatives, and finding ways to collaborate for greater impact.

Today, the Stanford Student Team released a statement about how the executive order on immigration is impacting our work. The long and short of it: Communication matters. Relationships matter. Time spent together matters. And we are doing everything we can to make sure that this year's 33 amazing participants (selected from a pool of over 500 applicants) have the chance to have the same world-changing week I did.

 

Read more about the 2017 AMENDS Delegates, their initiatives, and what the Stanford Team is working for: http://www.stanforddaily.com/2017/02/01/amends-we-refuse-to-be-shut-down-by-trumps-ban/

Learn more about AMENDS and get involved: http://amends.stanford.edu/

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