Travelers experiencing the Middle East firsthand on a Euphrates Institute trip
Founded in 2006, the Euphrates Institute works to promote sustainability and peace in the Middle East by uniting cultures that would otherwise be divided by lack of understanding each other. The Institute’s focus on energy, environmental, and security challenges strives to reduce terrorism, elevate society, and promote freedom.
“It started with a river,” founder and CEO Janessa Gans Wilder writes of her inspiration to create the Euphrates Institute. She found herself contemplating the Euphrates River during the time of a military battle in Iraq in 2004. Despite the human struggle and conflict, the river continued flowing uninterrupted. “Even through downtown Fallujah, the river surged on, untouched and unstopped by the chaos, death, and destruction happening around it, still bringing life, sustenance, and hope to the desert,” Janessa recalls. “Since that day, I have tried to fully appreciate that powerful lesson. I often wonder how we can be more like the Euphrates River.”
One of the Euphrates Institute’s main projects is providing travel study opportunities. It coordinates trips for North Americans to go the Middle East and personally understand the underlying causes of regional conflicts while experiencing the mindset of the people who live there. The travel study groups also provide an opportunity for peace builders to improve their understanding of the Middle East and how the three Abrahamic monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are connected with each other. “I wanted to help Americans directly engage the region through trips, educational programs, and examples of transformative grassroots solutions,” Janessa explains.
Another of the Euphrates Institute’s projects is helping people organize chapters in their own communities where they can explore their perceptions of life in the Middle East and engage in compassionate, creative discussion about how to take action to improve the global situation. The Institute’s emphasis on grassroots change helps individuals to feel more optimistic about the change they can effect in the world, and it now brings its message of peace building and optimism to the United States in San Francisco, California for the United Religions Initiative’s 12th annual Circles of Light Gala.
Janessa will be one of five Cooperation Circle leaders presenting their work on the forefront of local and global environmental efforts, which is being honored with the 2015 URI Circles of Light gala’s environmental theme. Circles of Light will be held March 14, 2015, in San Francisco’s Fairmont hotel. For tickets, please click here.
