The 6th Annual Global Youth Peace Summit (August 12th – 19th, 2012) will unite refugee, immigrant, local and international youth (ages 13-18) for an eight-day peace conference devoted to heart-centered dialogue, the importance of service to others, cultural awareness, authentic expression and exploration of self and world.  The Summit is a sustainable peace movement that offers young people an opportunity to directly experience themselves and their world through the eyes of equality, acceptance and compassion.

The Summit, which marks the beginning of the One Village Project each year, started as a grassroots, four-day program with 30 youth and 20 volunteers in 2007 and has grown into an internationally recognized program hosting 70+ youth from over 25 different countries and supported by 125+ volunteers and dozens of local businesses. While most of the refugee and immigrant youth we serve now live in Austin, this year delegates from Colombia, Liberia, Israel and Palestine traveled to the U.S. for the first time to be a part of the Global Youth Peace Summit and returned home as Peace Leaders.

Attending Next Year’s Global Youth Peace Summit?

Click Here for enrollment forms, volunteer applications, fundraising options, directions and more.

The Summit is a place for healing. Many of the youth leaders who attend the Global Youth Peace Summit have experienced poverty, religious persecution, child labor, gang violence, and neglect; some have witnessed the atrocities of war and have literally run for their lives; many have been uprooted from their native cultures and struggle to integrate into an entirely foreign world. With recognition that sustainable peace begins within, the Summit brings together 70+ youth from over 25 countries including:

The Global Youth Peace Summit challenges and inspires youth to honor differences, explore commonalities and create One Village united by values of: Love, Respect, Honesty, Community, and Service. The Summit serves as a space where people from all walks of life can connect with each other on a human-to-human level, celebrate unity in diversity, and share in a living experience of peace.

Activities and discussions provide the youth with tools for conflict-resolution, heart-centered communication, compassionate response, and peace-focused leadership. It is through these activities and discussions that the youth create friendships that broaden their global awareness and ignite their innate capacity for compassion.

The youth leaders are encouraged to put their compassion into action and rise up as Peace Leaders in service to their friends, classmates, family, communities and the world, planting the seeds for global healing and sustainable peace.

The Amala Foundation is accepting applications for volunteers. Learn more about how you can join the Village!

Meet Evelyn Apoko, Peace Leader

Evelyn Apoko is a Ugandan youth who at the age of 9 was kidnapped from her family at gunpoint by a warlord of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and forced to join this brutal rebel group. The children abducted by the LRA were beaten, forced to kill, treated as pack mules, made to steal, sexually abused and treated as slaves. Evelyn learned to live with the rebels because there was no way of escape. The atrocities Evelyn witnessed were unspeakable. One day, while Evelyn was washing clothes for one of the rebel leaders’ wives, a plane flew overhead. People started running and Evelyn was threatened to carry an impossibly heavy load and run or else be killed. While running, a bomb dropped next to Evelyn, killing the woman and baby next to her and blowing out part of Evelyn’s face. Later, when the plane had passed and Evelyn was lying in the field, the rebels came to carry the wounded back to camp.  So badly injured, they left Evelyn to die in the grass. Evelyn managed to survive that field and get back to the rebel camp – only to be ostracized for the infected hole in her face. On the brink of being killed for being a nuisance to the rebels, Evelyn escaped and just barely made it out alive. Today, she has undergone several surgeries as a beneficiary of Strongheart’s Next Right Thing program.  She was introduced to The Amala Foundation by Strongheart Fellowship and in 2010 attended the Global Youth Peace Summit.  In 2011, she served as a youth counselor, making a huge impact on the hearts and minds of those that attended the Summit.  In 2011, Evelyn also attended our 1st Annual San Quentin Prison Peace Walk, benefiting the Global Youth Peace Summit.  This year, she will return to the Global Youth Peace Summit as a Peace Leader.

“I grew up in a world of bloodshed, fear and tears.  The GYPS was a place where I was honored for being a whole human being.  I was embraced with a deep love… a love that I never knew existed.. a love that I know if more people in the world felt for each other – we’d have no more war.” – Evelyn Apoko, age 19, Former Abducted Child Soldier

UPDATE ON EVELYN: Evelyn Apoko is a leader for peace!  Our beloved Evelyn was recently featured in a CNN story due to her courageous efforts in bringing awareness to the plight of child soldiers in Uganda.  You can view the story here.  We’re so proud of Evelyn and are grateful to be a witness to her journey.  Her love and courage are making a big impact on this world.

The Need

At a time when the world seems increasingly violent and polarized along the lines of faith, nationality and political belief, there is a need for people to connect to each other and the world around them on a deeper level. The Global Youth Peace Summit addresses this need by uniting adolescents, including refugee, immigrant and underserved youth, to develop values of peace, compassion, and leadership, while helping them discover the power of service to others.

The Global Youth Peace Summit also addresses a need by serving a largely overlooked and growing population of refugee youth in the United States.  Many programs and resources exist to assist refugee families, specifically adults, but very few programs exist that assist refugee youth and offer them an opportunity to heal as well as provide them with a support structure as they adjust to life in a new country.

Our Partners

The Amala Foundation is proud to partner with these peace-centered social change organizations to offer a truly inspirational event.

• Urban Roots
• Caritas
• Refugee Services Of Texas
• Mutlicultural Refugee Coalition
• iAct
• Center for Survivors of Torture
• Strongheart Fellowship
• Youth Advocacy
• Communities in Schools
• Posada Esperanza
• Rebekah’s Children, Latina Leadership Program
• Khabele
• Champions For Children, San Quentin Prison
• Hilde Girls
• Djembabes
• Drumsistas
• Casa Marianella
• Department of Education in Colombia
• Rochas Foundation, Nigeria
• Bhatti Mines School, India
• Sulha, Israel

Sponsor a Youth

The Amala Foundation provides scholarships to approximately 70% of the youth leaders that attend the Global Youth Peace Summit. Scholarships are provided by local businesses, congregations, associations and individuals like you. It costs $775 to sponsor a youth leader to attend the Global Youth Peace Summit and $1000 to sponsor a youth to attend the Global Youth Peace Summit AND year-long One Village Project.  

Want to Serve?

At the Amala Foundation, we recognize that the most direct way to experience a fuller life is to serve others. We unite those seeking more meaningful lives with those in great need by channeling this into humanitarian service projects that matter like the Global Youth Peace Summit. If you wish to serve at next year’s Global Youth Peace Summit, please fill out our volunteer form. Please note that space is limited.

The Vision

The Amala Foundation hopes to plant seeds for sustainable peace worldwide by launching Summits in communities across the globe.  It is our hope that with increased funding and awareness, we will be able to host Global Youth Peace Summits throughout the world.  We are already in talks with organizations in Colombia, Israel and Kenya regarding Summits in those particular countries.  If you wish to help host a Global Youth Peace Summit in your community, please email us at info@amalafoundation.org.

Global Youth Peace Summit – Northern California 2013

The Summer of 2013 will mark the first time the Amala Foundation will host a Global Youth Peace Summit outside of Texas.  The exact location and date is still to be determined; please stay tuned for details. The Northern California Summit will take place in addition to the Austin Global Youth Peace Summit.  If you are in Northern California and wish to participate in the Norther California Global Youth Peace Summit, please email us at info@amalafoundation.org.  We are currently searching for a venue as well as potential sponsors and partner organizations.

Global Youth Peace Summit News & Press

On August 4th, 2011, News 8 Austin, otherwise known as YNN, featured a story on the Amala Foundation and Global Youth Peace Summit.  News 8 Austin was on hand when the City of Austin and City Council Member Kathy Tovo declared August 7th-13th Global Youth Peace Summit Week in Austin.  If you haven’t had a chance to see the coverage, please click here.

We’ve also been featured in a whole host of other media outlets including an interview on KOOP radio, a feature in TODO Magazine, Origin Magazine and Natural Awakenings as well as a piece on KUT radio which you can listen to here.  It’s powerful to have our voice heard in our community and be recognized for the work we are doing in the world.