Empowering Young Leaders to Foster Cohesion Through Community Dialogue
Context
Twenty years ago, Soliya was established in the wake of 9/11, surrounding the rhetoric of fear and animosity that spiked between the US and the broader Arab/Muslim world. In the backdrop of what felt increasingly like a hostile binary relationship, given an ultimatum ‘you’re either with us or against us’, there was no place for alternative perspectives, for nuance or the ability to ask questions or understand the other. We designed dialogue and training programs that sought to provide spaces to connect regular people from across this divide, and equip them with the skills and tools to navigate their differences constructively.
Over time, program alumni shared stories of how they were applying the insights gained from these global experiences to address local conflicts and divisions within their own communities. They particularly valued this unique opportunity to challenge their beliefs, engage in vigorous authentic discussion, and practice empathy and collaboration across divides, which enabled them to build skills required to lead in a multifaceted world.
In parallel, we were witnessing polarization, social fragmentations and ‘othering’ spread and grow at an alarming pace and play out increasingly not just globally but within regions and nations, within our neighborhoods, our workplace and our schools. Recognizing the broader potential of our program model and building on participant feedback, Soliya adapted its approach and pivoted to building a generation of youth aware of local and global perspectives on critical issues in the world, equipped with the confidence, skills and tools to be civically engaged members of their communities, and motivated to foster the values of diversity, inclusion and pluralism. Leveraging the power of technology to reach youth around the globe at scale, we envision such dialogue programs to promote citizen agency to cultivate more resilient societies better equipped to manage conflicts.
About Soliya
Driven by our belief that our differences make us stronger, Soliya is committed to investing in human to human connections. We combine the power of dialogue with the reach of technology to provide digital global learning experiences to college-aged youth across the world. We have 20 years of experience designing, running, and evaluating virtual exchange programs to empower rising generations to engage with difference constructively. Defined as the practice of engaging people from different perspectives and cultures in online, synchronous, and facilitated dialogue, virtual exchange has been increasingly embraced by local and global institutions as a way to inspire critical thinking, curiosity, openness, and empathy. In 2019, Soliya was recognized by the Global Centre for Pluralism as an Honorable Mention recipient of the Global Pluralism Award.
Since 2003, we have engaged over 60,000 young adults across over 280 local institutions in 37 countries and 33 of the 50 United States and we now reach 10,000 participants annually. Our programs are predominantly focused in the US, Middle East and North Africa, Europe and South and South-East Asia.
Dialogue
Soliya’s dialogue programs connect college-age youth, at a critical age of identity crystallization, to together grapple with the important and divisive issues of our world today, to learn to lead with empathy and promote pluralism, and to thrive as global citizens in multicultural contexts. Our model is essentially rooted in intercultural dialogue pedagogy combined with online & global learning best practices. Soliya carefully crafted programs that foster meaningful intergroup learning in an equitable and safe space. We believe that building empathy, understanding, trust, and appreciation of differences, as well as developing global competencies, and a motivation to support more equitable just societies can only be achieved through intentional design. Soliya’s virtual dialogue exchanges, rooted in intergroup contact theory, follow this common peacebuilding strategy to connect people across lines of difference in a safe and neutral space, and provide diverse, small group, synchronous, experiential, facilitated and sustained experiences which are all important conditions for ‘critical dialogue’ and constructive engagement.
We create small dialogue groups, and following Soliya’s curriculum, participants engage in a process of self-discovery, deep listening and collaborative learning. Each group is guardrailed by 1-2 trained Soliya facilitators who help navigate through the harder parts of the dialogue process; ensuring all voices are brought to and kept at the table. Together, participants build their confidence and practice civil discourse, and experience first hand the value of pluralism, respect for the other, and the richness that stems from diversity. Our impact assessment shows consistent increase in levels of empathy, connection and trust, increased efficacy through feeling heard and respected and a renewed sense of belonging and agency (see annex 2 below).
Soliya’s Dialogue Programs:
Training
One of the critical aspects of our dialogue programs is the role of facilitators who guide the learning process. Following Soliya’s curriculum, they address imbalances that may be present in a multilateral space, encourage openness, and uncover underlying biases or experiences. In tandem with our dialogue program, we designed a Dialogue Facilitation Training, to empower multiple cohorts of young professionals to become process leaders, and facilitate and promote constructive, respectful, and authentic engagement across differences. We have trained over 7,000 people representing 133 nationalities.
We also offer these training opportunities to our dialogue program alumni. Many participants express interest in further enhancing their skills and developing not just their ability to engage in difficult conversations themselves, but also to help others engage constructively and respectfully around divisive issues, and to play leadership roles within their societies as peacebuilders and advocates for dialogue and pluralism. Through extensive training, participants learn to promote respectful engagement and understanding across lines of difference. Facilitators are trained to apply a diverse set of engagement tools to foster self-awareness, address various group dynamics, surface underlying emotions, and enable participants to engage and collaborate constructively across their differences.
For years, we heard from participants that the skills they acquired through this training proved valuable and transferable to various settings and especially in the workplace. At work, we are frequently required to navigate difficult dynamics, collaborate across different working styles and manage conflicts in a respectful and constructive manner. We know that diverse teams enhance critical thinking, creativity and collaboration, as well as productivity, and performance. However we often struggle to harness our differences to communicate and work well together. We are in the process of reframing our dialogue facilitation training and gearing it towards the corporate world, touching on applicable topics, such as increased self-awareness of personal communication patterns, the ability to communicate effectively within and across diverse teams, the art of engaging without escalating difficult conversations, and cultivating, honing and promoting empathetic and inclusive leadership. Our hope is to launch a product that we can market for the corporate world with a view to build a reliable revenue stream that can subsidize our mission-oriented work. As a non-profit, we strive to build a business model that will ensure our long term growth and sustainability.
Soliya’s Training Programs:
Our Vision and Our Needs
What would be the impact on societies if a critical mass of youth from around the globe had the chance to experience, cultivate and master effective non-violent practices when engaging with people deemed ‘different’.
Soliya’s program model applied through deliberately designed methodologies and leveraging the power and reach of technology, has proven lasting, measurable impact and that is highly adaptable and scalable. Our goal is to reach young people from around the world during a critical stage of identity formation and enable them to experience first-hand the art of constructive civic discourse and to nurture the ability to be empathetic, think critically and collaborate effectively with others. Our largest dialogue programs (Connect Program and Global Circles) bring together youth from across identity lines, across borders and across continents. With 1st Year Connect, we have applied the same approach within the US, within single institutions, to address local divisions and tensions and to create social cohesion on a university campus. Our program methodology can be replicated and scaled in global, regional and local settings. Through advocacy and institutionalization, this work can build generations of people who are equipped and motivated to engage constructively with the ‘other’ both within and between communities. As a result, societies can progressively evolve towards more collaborative and conflict-resilient behaviors rendering a world where diversity, inclusion and pluralism are embraced.
We are approaching Ford Foundation as we feel there is strong alignment in our goals and approaches in multiple intersecting ways.
Our work has the power to increase civic engagement and reduce polarization.
We seed powerful global diverse youth networks, and generate opportunities for mutual learning and collaboration.
Our program models a human-centered technology-enabled approach, to achieve effective digital citizenship.
We aim to flourish constructive communities, and workplaces. The skills we promote are essential for the future of work.
We are eager to engage in conversations with the Foundation to explore possible collaborations. At this stage, we are looking for opportunities to strengthen our core capacity, to collaborate, learn and disseminate lessons learnt, and further expand our impact to new communities:
Capacity building to enable our growth and development, including support for further digitization of our content and support systems to make the program more accessible and impactful.
Research & advocacy support to enable us to assess the impact of our work when applied to new contexts, and share our methodology and impact.
Expansion globally, as well as going deeper in specific regions/countries to address local tensions. We’re interested in expanding our global program to Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, given our deep knowledge and presence in both the US and MENA, and understanding of the depth of internal polarization in each of these locations, we feel well-positioned to apply our methodology to domestic or regional programming to address issues at the local level.
Annex 1 — Values
We are committed to core values that are prominently reflected throughout our organizational culture, within our teams and community, in the diverse demographics we cater to, and through the thoughtful design of our programs and content offerings. We’d like to highlight two in particular:
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
Our mission is to reach a wide diversity of youth, bringing all voices to the table, in an effort to generate unlikely encounters and promote dialogue across a cross section of society. Being a virtual program, we believe we are well placed to reach hard-to-reach and marginalized communities who would not typically have access to such learning opportunities on a global scale. We work with local youth-serving institutions including universities, non-profit organizations, language centers, and refugee camps. Significantly, Soliya emphasizes engaging disenfranchised young people from underprivileged backgrounds and those with limited opportunities and access. In a given round hosting thousands of participants, we divide them into small dialogue groups, generally consisting of 10 participants each. We carefully craft these groups to bring a diversity of voices and backgrounds in each group, and they all participate in dialogue together on equal footing.
DEIB is also one of the most engaging topics of discussion for our participants across our dialogue programs: participants learn a lot from sharing their thoughts on how privilege impacts life in their society, discussing concepts of inclusion and belonging, sharing their personal experiences with systemic discrimination and how different societies address it.
Finally, through our staff composition and organizational culture, Soliya mirrors the values of pluralism and inclusion that it strives to foster in young adults who graduate from its programming. Demographically, our team of 21 hails from 7 different countries. 66% of our team members identify as female, and 30% identify as racial minorities in their country of residence. Our team is deeply diverse. It includes members who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community as well as members with physical disabilities. Our community of facilitators and trainers who are the face of our programs, representing 85 nationalities are an even more widely diverse group. With this rich demographic, we are able to work with participants from all nationalities, religions, sexual orientations, ages, and racial backgrounds with competency, empathy, and respect.
Tech for Good
While advances in communication technology should afford us greater access to information and different perspectives, we have witnessed instead an alarming rise in polarization of ideologies, and increased fear of the other. There are grave concerns that these communication technologies have played a role in exacerbating such destructive trends particularly amongst young adults as they grapple with the dual forces of hyper connectivity and isolation. The rapid growth and accessibility of new technologies has reshaped how young people receive, interpret, and react to information and conflict. This can be a challenge and an opportunity. Social media has played a major role, both as a site for political arguments between anonymous users and for the propagation of fake news. Social media also tends to create a “feedback loop,” in which users are directed to content that matches their existing opinions and biases. There is however a growing body of work looking at how technology can be leveraged as a tool for reducing fear, anxiety and stigma, by helping to foster empathy, curiosity and deep human connection. Soliya is one such example of how to effectively use communication technologies to provide young people with positive, constructive experiences. We recognized that technology was playing an ever increasing role in our lives, and that effective online engagement and digital citizenship had become imperative. In the absence of technology designed for health or appropriate platform moderation, we invest in a human-centered approach where youth can directly be equipped with the attitudes and skills to thrive in diverse communities. We believe there is an opportunity to empower a new generation of youth with the tools and resources for cultivating positive narratives and influencing how divisive issues are discussed in online platforms, gradually changing online culture.
From our very start, we chose to leverage technology as the new space where narratives are being formed and amplified, but also to make our programs widely accessible and scalable, for a fraction of the cost of in-person exchanges. In the early 2000’s, prior to Zoom or Skype, we designed our own video conferencing platform, specifically geared for meaningful dialogue. As communication technologies rapidly advanced in the last few years, we have switched to Zoom in 2021. Using technology, we are able to reach thousands of youth annually, and there is potential for significant growth. As we target hard-to-reach communities, our local partners are a great source of support in providing access to computer labs within their institutions, thereby enabling us to bring together youth from a wide variety of diverse backgrounds.
Our programs being designed for virtual implementation, are carefully crafted to enable meaningful engagement across the digital divide. Our facilitators are trained to navigate various dynamics that arise when some participants have reduced bandwidth, using a number of activities and discussion topics to (1) ensure all voices are equally present, (2) highlighting to participants that the dynamics they are observing in the room are a true reflection of the digital and economic divides in our world, and turning it into an opportunity for participants to reflect on real life global discourses, and whose voices are typically included and missing due to privilege and economic advantage.
Additionally, with the rise of new emerging technologies and AI, there are a number of discussions around responsible technology that are increasingly gaining popularity among our participants. Discussions revolving around the impact of emerging technologies on people’s lives and future of work, what are ethical considerations in relation to tech design and monitoring, and how new technologies are impacting our mental health, are some examples of topics in high demand.
As a team, we have been early adopters of remote and hybrid work from our very early days. We have a small but diverse team based in locations around the world. Over the years, we refined a process using a variety of technical tools, to promote effective communication practices, spaces for building connection, collaboration and team building, and to balance support and accountability mechanisms. We believe that the flexibility afforded by technology and the ability to work from various locations, is a key aspect to our staff’s wellbeing and motivation.
Annex 2 — Research Findings
Our program design is rooted in intergroup contact theory. In intercultural engagement, there is an assumed connection between exposure to the other - under specific conditions - and the expected result of reduced prejudice and increased intergroup understanding and peaceful intergroup relations.
According to a recent report on What Promotes Pluralism in America’s Diversifying Democracy, commissioned by the New Pluralists, the authors speak of the scarce spaces for “organic opportunities for perspective-taking and the communication of personal experiences—which often rely on intergroup encounters and extended conversations”. We believe this is equally true within the US as much as everywhere else around the world. As the report says: “The key is multiplying meaningful interactions between people of different social groups.” In a recent publication by IFIT founder and executive director, Mark Freeman, titled First Principles: The Need for Greater Consensus on the Fundamentals of Polarisation, the use of intergroup dialogue is again recognized as an effective tool for addressing the ‘hyper-problem’ of polarization.
Since 2008, Soliya has forged key research collaborations to establish robust research methodologies and tools to assess the impact of virtual exchange. Partnerships with cognitive neuro-scientists Dr. Rebecca Saxe and Dr. Emile Bruneau were followed by partnerships with Dr. Francesca Helm, associate professor at University of Padova, and Dr. Sandy Schumann, lecturer at University College London. Through these collaborations, we have developed, tested and validated a set of measurement tools that were later on adapted for long term impact assessment.
Below are some research publications on our work. To read more about our research methodology and to access additional publications, we invite you to visit our impact pages.
Intergroup Contact Reduces Dehumanization and Meta-Dehumanization
In a published research in July 2020, Dr. Bruneau and colleagues looked at three case studies, and Soliya’s Connect Program is featured under case studies 3a and 3b looking at data from 2016 and 2017. This research focused on the relationship between contact and dehumanization and meta-dehumanization. Soliya’s contribution was particularly interesting as it provided the “first quasi-experimental test of the effect of intergroup contact on dehumanization”.
The results were robust and positive, and the study concluded that: “Quasi-experimental evidence provided converging evidence for the association between contact quality and both dehumanization and meta-dehumanization. In particular, Study 3b provided evidence for an improvement in attitudes and meta-perceptions toward Muslims among those who participated in the contact program relative to a (small) control sample who—despite being similar to the students in the experimental condition—did not participate in the program.”
Quasi-Experimental Design Results: Soliya
Commissioned by the Stevens Initiative, and working in collaboration with University of Pennsylvania and RTI International, Soliya once again looked at the Connect Program Impact Assessment in comparison to a control group during 2020 and 2021. This study looked at five outcomes areas: Knowledge of the Other, Perspective Taking, Cross-Cultural Communication, Self-Other Overlap, and Feeling Thermometer. The results are summarized here and published as part of the Stevens Initiative 2022 Virtual Exchange Impact and Learning Report.
In conclusion, the study found that “Soliya program participants had consistently higher global competencies in the post-program survey than the comparison group […] Like the overall results, the effect of Soliya participation was positive and statistically significant across all five scales in both regions.”
In the published paper in 2022, Dr. Schumann presents results of a study conducted in 2019, where we ran a large-scale retrospective study, following over 3,000 participants who had completed the Connect Program spring 2018, fall 2018 and spring 2019, and had completed pre-program and post-program surveys. Results were strong and positive, showing sustained impact up to 18 after program completion.
Dr. Schumann concludes: “We found that long-term improvements in prejudice, outgroup knowledge, confidence, and collective action tendencies are attained even with online programs that are less resource-intensive. This insight can inform the activities of stakeholders that aim to prevent or counter intergroup conflict at scale.”