It took me two flights and a sleepless night to get from Paris to Mumbai. By the time I arrived, I was so tired that I slept through most of the six-hour drive to the IofC centre, Asia Plateau, located 250 km south of Mumbai. I was even too tired to worry about the Indian way of driving and the many bumps on the road.

But as soon as I arrived, all was forgotten. Asia Plateau is located in the hills, 1,300 meters above sea level and surrounded by beautiful, lush gardens. I was fascinated by this green oasis, with monkeys in the trees, and felt immediately welcomed by the people running the centre.

On 28 January, the conference Emergent Future: Rethinking our World Together started and from the very beginning until the end the organisers delivered an amazing event, full of energy and surprises that made people forget the struggles of their daily lives.

We had a packed programme filled with inspiring sessions on peacebuilding and educational work mixed with sharing groups and amazing music performances.

We also had the opportunity to meet with the Grampari team, a programme of IofC India, which has managed to build a successful model of sustainable long-term development through behavioural change, watershed management, livelihood programmes and other innovative projects. Their work has transformed the economic and environmental conditions of the villages surrounding Asia Plateau and the IofC practice of listening to your inner voice when taking decisions is at the very core of their mission. So far, Grampari has impacted 158 villages and 30,000 people. I was impressed to see the impact that IofC and its grassroot work have made on the people living close by.

Even though I had been involved in IofC for several years before my trip to India, my time in Asia Plateau was the first time that I took part in what I would call the ‘quintessential IofC experience’ where inner change can really happen. You can feel it in the discussions at lunch or dinner where participants are either so enthusiastic that they cannot stop talking or are so overwhelmed by what they have experienced or heard that they suddenly become very quiet. I felt very inspired, met amazing new people and discovered new emerging personal callings.

I think it was the first time I truly understood the essence of what IofC is about.

I realised that at the end of the day, it all boils down to slowing down and to listening to what your inner voice is trying to tell you about when, where, and how to act. This may sound very easy on paper, but it requires training, like everything in life. If you want to deeply listen to others or to yourself, you need to practice it every day.

At the end of the conference I stayed on at the IofC centre for the second part of my journey. I was organising a team-building retreat for the IofC Hub team, who had also taken part in the Emergent Future conference.

Although we had planned the Hub retreat before we arrived in India, we realised that we had to change our programme and adapt to the ways of Asia Plateau. We decided to allocate more time to inspirational sessions and story-sharing and it turned out to be the right decision. I feel honoured to have heard so many life stories and experiences from my fellow team members and to have learnt from them.

Although organising the event required a lot of effort and focus on the different tasks, I believe that not many networks can create the amazing atmosphere I experienced with IofC in Asia Plateau.

My trip to India and the IofC centre in Asia Plateau was the experience of a lifetime. I am truly fascinated by this amazing country, of which I have seen so little so far. But, I promise to return one day.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to slowing down and to listening to what your inner voice is trying to tell you.

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Asia Plateau is the education centre for Initiatives of Change India. Since its inauguration, the centre has conducted more than 2,000 programmes on campus and offered a refuge for transformation and an incubator for inspired, collective and inclusive actions and personal and global change.

The conference Emergent Future: Rethinking our World Together reached out to social and thought leaders in an attempt to make sense of our ever-increasing complex world. It offered panel discussions and keynote speakers and provided space for questions, reflection and inspiration to seek direction for the future.

You would like to discover more impressions from the Emergent Future conference in Asia Plateau? Read Morenike Onajobi's inspiring story A sense of peace.

How can singing make a difference in people's lives? Pioneering Egyptian musician Dalia Younis was a guest speaker at the Creative Leadership conference in 2022 where she talked about how she uses singing to promote trust.

Dalia Younis trained as a doctor, works for an international development organization, cares for her autistic son – and somehow finds time for her great passion: using singing to build community.  Her tools are singing circles, A Cappella (unaccompanied) singing and – controversially, as a hijab-wearing Muslim – singing Christian hymns in churches.

It all began in 2017, when she turned 30, got divorced and her son was diagnosed with autism. ‘I also had a long break from work. I found myself with a broken family, no steady income and new responsibilities as the mother of a differently-abled child. I needed something to resort to.’

As a teenager, Dalia had loved to sing: but she didn’t know how to start again. A friend suggested she give a performance for a few friends in downtown Cairo. Newly single, she chose Valentine’s Day and made it a singles’ night, with single-life-appropriate Arabic songs. Ninety people came.

This led to Dalia’s first singing circle, a concept she introduced to Egypt. Up to 60 participants sit in a large circle and Dalia facilitates singing games, drawing on principles of music therapy and psychodrama. ‘Sometimes I invent a game on the spot,’ she says. ‘Although in my work life I’m a planning freak, in a singing circle I find myself liberated to follow my heart.’

The programme has spread beyond Cairo and celebrated its fifth birthday last year: 65 singing circles in total. Some people come once; others repeatedly. ‘In Egypt we have a lack of safe spaces where people can be themselves without judgment or pressure,’ she explains. ‘You can use group singing to create a community which has the values that you want to introduce to society. People say it has changed them.’

You can use group singing to create a community which has the values that you want to introduce to society.

Through the circles, Dalia met kindred spirits who loved singing but whose jobs meant they could not commit to more demanding choirs. Together, they founded Klaxics, Egypt’s first A Cappella choir singing in Arabic. Their first video – featuring Dalia’s classical arrangement of a pop song – got four million views.  

Klaxics has 10 to 14 members, ranging from teenagers to seniors. ‘We welcome everyone. You just have to pass an audition to make sure that you can follow a simple melody.’  She met her second husband through the ensemble.

To enable herself to compose the arrangements, Dalia has studied musical theory, online with the University of Edinburgh and in person in Lebanon. Last Christmas, the choir released an Arabic rendition of Once upon a December, a song from the animated film Anastasia. ‘We didn’t have any funding. But the choir said, “Let’s share the cost”. For the first time I felt it’s not my project, it’s our project.’

Dalia’s most controversial venture is her sacred music project. As a teenager, she loved the music of the Lebanese diva Fairouz, who is a Christian. She found in her sacred songs a quality which transcended religion: ‘a special way of putting your soul in the singing’.

In the summer of 2018, she approached a Catholic priest to ask if she could record herself singing a hymn to the Virgin Mary in his church in downtown Cairo. ‘He asked why. I said, because I love the hymn and I love the Virgin Mary, who is revered in both Islam and Christianity.’ 

Following a BBC report which suggested, wrongly, that she wanted to join the church choir, there was a backlash from conservative Egyptians. ‘But I also heard from people who said I was brave to do this. I’m not doing this as a religious act. I’m doing it as a way of building bridges.’

I’m not doing this as a religious act. I’m doing it as a way of building bridges.

Since then, she has performed in Arabic in many churches, including All Saints Cathedral in Cairo in 2019 and, in 2021, in St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. ‘In St Patrick’s, tourists from all over the world were dazzled to see a woman in a hijab singing these well-known Christmas melodies in Arabic, a language which is stigmatized with terrorism.’

Her son, now aged eight, is largely non-verbal, and has ADHD as well as autism. Here, too, Dalia has ‘unorthodox’ views. ‘Some people say it’s such a blessing to have a child like this. But I feel that part of getting over the pain is to acknowledge it rather than try to manipulate it into something it’s not.’

She feels that the emphasis on high functioning, gifted autism can be unhelpful for mothers of children with special needs. ‘I see some mothers pushing their children in an attempt to find something at which they excel. If I can’t find a special talent in my child, would I stop loving him?’

She realizes that her education and her work have given her access to services and support that most Egyptian mothers don’t have. ‘I want to use my voice to speak out on issues regarding people with different abilities in Egypt.’

It was one of the fans of her Facebook page who told Dalia about Creative Leadership 2022. She was inspired and ‘amazed’ by what she heard and glad to showcase her work in front of people from all over the world. She hopes to continue her involvement when the conference comes off line.

Interested in Creative Leadership? Discover the full conference report 2022 or read Afghan soccer player Kawser Amine's inspiring story.

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Watch Dalia and her choir Klaxics at their participation at the World Choral Day 2022

• By Mary Lean
• Photos: with kind permission of Dalia Younis
• Video: World Choral Day/YouTube

More than 120 high-school students and teachers from the Lausanne region were treated to a powerful afternoon of local history at the Caux Palace at the end of March. From the magnificent main hall the audience were given a short introduction to the Palace and the Initiatives of Change movement, before moving into the Caux theatre. There, Geneva lawyer Marc Isserles, in collaboration with the group LEBEDIK, presented the remarkable story of his grandparents’ escape from Budapest during the Shoah in 1944, and their subsequent arrival in Caux, alongside 1,600 other Jewish refugees.

During the performance Marc Isserles showed a photo of his grandparents in Montreux, being re-united with their two daughters, alongside the Hungarian woman who had hidden the children as part of her family in the countryside until the end of the war, at the risk of her own life. At the end of the show, there were gasps from the audience when Isserles presented his mother, one of the two girls in the photo with his grandparents.

Also in the audience were the IofC Switzerland foundation’s staff, along with friends from the village and region, including some of the Ukrainian refugees who found shelter in Caux from a new war – disturbing contemporary echoes of the past. Some of these refugees, as well as some of the Ukrainian students, followed a written translation of the performance in their native language. The audience also included the Archivist of the Commune of Montreux and the head of the Montreux library.

The event grew out of one teacher’s passion for Caux. Nicolas Rutz had brought several classes to Caux for visits, in the framework of studying the development of tourism and tourist infrastructures, including guided tours of the Caux Palace. When the students started studying World War II and the Holocaust, the idea naturally developed to bring them all to Caux to experience Marc Isserles’ story-telling.

In his one-man show, titled We must save the children, Isserles sings, dances and tells stories, accompanied by two Klezmer musicians, Michel Borzykoswki and Sylvie Bossi. This performance was something of a test run, with the team hoping to offer it to other local schools in the future.

When you see this, it’s not just a list. Behind the names, there are faces, families, hopes and despair. Human beings.

- Marc Isserles

By Andrew Stallybrass / Photo top: Nicolas Rutz

Afghan soccer player and women’s rights advocate Kawser Amine was a guest speaker at a Human Library event during the online 2022 Creative Leadership conference on Living your Possibilites - From Healing to Action. On International Women's Day 2023, celebrating the achievements of women from all walks of life, she talks about her remarkable journey and her fight for every woman to be free to fulfill her potential.

Whether she’s on the soccer field, or speaking up for women’s rights, Kawser Amine doesn’t believe in giving up. For eight years, she was a member of Afghanistan’s first national women’s soccer team, a risky business in a society where infringing cultural conventions can put your life at risk.

Three times a week, she and her sister went to the army helicopter ground in Kabul, passing through 12 checkpoints on the way to train behind high walls.

Once a bomb exploded behind them just as they were getting onto the bus home. ‘It was very hard, but we did not give up because if we did, there would be no opportunity for the women and girls standing behind us.

We opened up the field for girls. Before the regime change, hundreds of girls were playing soccer in Afghanistan. I felt so proud!’

Kawser was only nine in 2007 when she was selected for the team. (She explains that, because of cultural norms, the women’s national team is made up of youth and teens.) Her mother must be remarkable, to allow her children to follow their dreams in the face of such risks? Yes, Kawser agrees: ‘She did an amazing job of supporting us in continuing our education and playing our sport.’

Kawser went to the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in 2013 to study political science, got married in 2014, and resigned from professional soccer the next year, with her daughter on the way. In 2016 the AUAF was attacked. Thirteen people were killed and 50 injured. The Taliban followed up with a letter to each student, threatening to kill them if they continued to study there. The university closed down indefinitely, and Kawser transferred her degree to the Indian School of Business Management in New Delhi, where she graduated in general management with a specialization in international relations.

From Afghanistan to the US

Meanwhile, she and her husband looked for ways to leave the country for their own safety and for their daughter’s future. ‘Afghanistan is not a country where girls are safe to explore or to think big. I didn’t want her to experience what I had experienced.’ Finally, in 2019 they left for the US under a scheme open to them because her husband worked with the American military and NATO. 

The adjustment was difficult. In Afghanistan, Kawser had worked as a political advisor, gender advisor and programme director for the government. ‘I struggled to find myself as an immigrant woman in San Francisco, but I never thought of leaving my activism,’ she says. ‘I got a job as a bank teller, but my heart and mind were far away from my job.’ Then Covid started, and because Kawser was pregnant, her doctor advised her to resign.

Over the next 18 months, during which her son was born, Kawser began to build her own foundation, Women’s Solidarity for Peace and Leadership, with the help of a friend and the network she created. Then, in August 2021, Kabul fell. ‘I knew from the very beginning that the Taliban would stop girls’ activities and women’s access to their fundamental rights.’  She designed a social media campaign, Stand for Girls’ Education in Afghanistan.

New initiatives

A year later, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten to death in Iran for allegedly failing to comply with women’s dress regulations, Kawser realized that her advocacy needed to reach wider. She launched Join My Voice, an international women’s solidarity campaign which invites women to share their stories. ‘The campaign is designed to respond to women’s crises, such as inequality, sexual assault and violence of all sorts, and to uplift their stories and experiences,’ she says.

Kawser believes in the power of sport to bring change for the better. ‘Soccer is not just a game to me: it’s a language of unity, power, solidarity and peace.’

Alongside her social media campaigns, Kawser is setting up the Amine Soccer Academy, to help vulnerable children to realize their dreams of playing soccer. ‘I want to give them the confidence that comes from sport, the skills to succeed and the belief that they are capable of greatness.’ She has found a warm response to her plan from local government and schools and allies in such organizations as the US Soccer Foundation and Beyond Sport to partner with her.

She is also taking part in an initiative of the National Football League, which promotes football in high schools as a means of preventing students from falling into addiction. Recently she spoke at a high school in Arizona and was astonished by the warmth of the students’ response.

‘I never give up,’ she told them. ‘I fought for my education. You guys have many opportunities. Please use them to change your society. I come from a country that has seen more than 45 years of war and oppression. But instead of becoming a victim, I choose to turn my anger into action.’

A call for gender equality in Afghanistan

On International Women’s Day, Kawser calls on world leaders to push for gender equality in Afghanistan. ‘Women in Afghanistan are not even allowed to go out of their homes without a male companion: can you imagine what it is like in families where there are no males? I hear these stories every day and night, and my heart breaks.’

The Creative Leadership conference Living your Possibilities - From Healing to Action challenged participants to explore their potential to change the world for the better. Nearly 200 people from all over the world took part. Kawser’s mission fitted right in.

Read the full report on Creative Leadership 2022

Soccer is not just a game to me: it’s a language of unity, power, solidarity and peace.

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Watch Kawser introducing her work with Women’s Solidarity for Peace and Leadership

• Interview by Mary Lean
• Photos published with kind permission by Kawser Amine

24 February 2022 marks a day that many of us will not forget and divided the lives of many into ‘before’ and ‘after’. Since then, millions of displaced people have left their homes in Ukraine in search of a safe space.

Initiatives of Change Switzerland felt compelled to respond to the need and decided to offer accommodation and support at their centre in Caux. The Caux Refuge was born.

The Caux Palace has a long tradition of providing a safe space for people from conflict areas. It acted as a refugee centre during WWII, before Initiatives of Change bought the building with the purpose of restoring trust between people in post-war Europe.

The Caux Refuge was located in the Villa Maria next to the Caux Palace. Alina and her mother Liudmyla were the first Ukrainians welcomed at the Caux Refuge on 23 March 2022. ‘I am so thankful to all the members of the wonderful IofC and Caux community, who brought all the essentials – healthcare items, medicine, clothes and food, all with great generosity.’ Alina told Ukrainian journalist Anastasia Slyvinska.

Anastasia and her husband also found refuge in Caux and while she was there, Anastasia supported the Foundation’s communications department, giving her fellow Ukrainians in Caux a voice through a series of interviews.

The Caux Refuge quickly started filling up. Thirty-five Ukrainians, including eight families with children, stayed at the Villa Maria during the year. Some had a direct connection with IofC, others were sent by family members who had been to Caux or were part of the IofC- inspired Foundations for Freedom (F4F) network. For some, Caux was only a place to pause, gather strength and then move on. Others stayed the entire year.

They included people from all walks of life – a politician and his family, a teacher and her daughter, a nurse.

The children quickly integrated into local life. ‘The school here is fantastic. They organized a special class with five boys, a teacher and a translator’, said Anatolii, father of three teenage boys.

IofC Switzerland’s liaison officers, Ekaterina and Marina, helped the Caux Refuge residents enrol in French lessons (‘Language is crucial’, says Oksana), apply for internships and training, discover the social welfare system in Switzerland, explore Swiss culture and customs and and gain in autonomy.

Since that fatal day in February 2022, a year has gone by and the Ukrainians of the Caux Refuge have moved on. All but one have left the Villa Maria. Many have decided to stay in Switzerland and close to Caux.

This last year hasn’t been easy. But the Ukrainians of the Caux Refuge are now ready for their next steps.

We wish them all the very best for this next chapter in their life and are grateful that we were able to help and offer them a safe space in these difficult times.

Thank you

So many have helped and supported us over this past year and we are grateful to each one of you. This list is by no means complete but we would like to name some of those who have been particularly involved in making the Caux Refuge a success:

• Ekaterina, Horia, Fabian, Adrien, Myriam, Edna, Claude, Valentin, Nick and Stephanie from IofC Switzerland
• Véronique and Sylvie from the Amis de Caux association
• Eliane, Andrew, Amandine, Marina and Alessandro from the village of Caux
• Victor, Greg, Patric, Ana, Patrick and Mica from a local hotel school
• Etablissement Vaudois d'Accueil des Migrants (EVAM), Commune de Montreux, Société de Développement de Caux, Amis de Caux, L’Armée du Salut, Office régional de placement (ORP), IofC Netherlands, IofC UK

A special thanks goes to all those who have responded to our call for donations and supported the Caux Refuge financially!

Without you, this year would not have been possible! THANK YOU!

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Everything is forever changing. Nothing is permanent. Nothing can last forever. If the curve has gone down so drastically it means, at some point it is bound to go upwards again! Of this I am absolutely convinced and I have trust.

Oksana, Caux Refuge

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Eliane Stallybrass lives in Caux and has supported the Caux Refuge with French lessons, an open ear, friendship, advice and practical help. Looking back on the past year she writes:

A year has gone by since the first Ukrainians arrived in Caux. Their time in Caux has enabled them to gain a foothold in Switzerland, to find security and to prepare themselves for their next steps which are still so uncertain.

They are taking French classes and the EVAM, the institution that looks after refugees in this canton in Switzerland, has allocated them a small sum of money so that they can settle ‘at home’ with their own lease. They have all found a flat and some of them are housed in the rectory of the Protestant Church in Montreux where 11 people, including families with children, are now free from the worry of finding somewhere to live. Their move to Montreux took place on 1 March. A local hotel school donated desks and tables, an organization offered beds and mattresses, and IofC Switzerland is happy to see chairs and tables, received 60 years ago for the Caux Palace dining room, finding a new life. There are also dishes, towels, sheets and duvets that have finally come out of the cupboards where they have been sleeping for years.

Several of the Ukrainians have become close friends. We celebrated Liuba’s 70th together and the oldest Caux Refuge resident, Anna, has an incredible gift for making friends. Everyone knows and loves her in Caux and even though she hasn't managed to learn more than ‘Hello, how are you?’ she will have coffee at everyone's house.

We will miss their smiles and their ‘Bonjour, ça va?’ here in Caux.

By Ulrike Ott Chanu and Eliane Stallybrass

When you own a unique historic building like the Caux Palace with its 225 rooms, 1,600 windows and 1.6 kilometres of corridors, reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 seems a Herculean task. But each step on the way is important. Over the last years IofC Switzerland has worked continuously on improving the ecological sustainability of its flagship building. 

In its current edition, the top real estate magazine in French-speaking Switzerland, immobilier.ch, showcases the Caux Palace as one of five positive examples of how historic buildings can be preserved and renovated, while improving ecological sustainability.

Read the full article featuring the Caux Palace (in French)

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Restoring historic buildings keeps local history alive and anchors them in their communities. This is certainly true of the Caux Palace. Its prominent position high above Lake Geneva and its long and rich history attracts tourists and visitors.

Restoration is also a step towards ecological sustainability because it maximizes the use of existing materials and reduces waste and consumption.

Sustainable living is part of IofC Switzerland’s mission, as is preserving the Caux Palace. The renovation of the Caux Palace has been carried out gently and subtly to preserve its heritage. This work has included:

• Progressive insulation of the 1500 m2 of flat roofs. A study is underway to evaluate the installation of invisible (flat) solar panels
• The regulation of heating in certain areas such as corridors and staircases.
• Regulation of heating in such areas as the corridors and staircases. 
• Reduction of the hours when the heating is on.
•  The use of efficient thermostatic valves and of water flow limiters.
•  Improved seals on doors and windows and insulation of blinds.
•  The replacement of lighting with LEDs.
•  An awareness campaign for all occupants.
•  A multitude of small measures which, when taken together, represent significant savings.

But the biggest milestone on the Foundation’s road to sustainability has probably been the replacement of the Caux Palace’s oil-fired heating system with a wood-fired one, fed 80% with forestry chips and 20% with oil. The wood comes from the region, thereby reducing CO2 emissions from transport and supporting the local economy.

Setting up the new system in the confined space of the Caux Palace’s basement was not an easy task. The project began in July 2015 and the system was inaugurated in October 2016. It saves about 600 tons of fossil-fuel-based CO2 every year.

We are pleased and grateful that our efforts to maintain and restore the Caux Palace have been recognized in the region. The Foundation will continue to ensure the preservation and sustainability of this unique place.

Read more:

• https://www.immobilier.ch/fr/actualite-magazines/e-paper (p. 9)*
• https://www.iofc.ch/stories/behind-scenes-caux-palace-meticulous-work
• https://www.24heures.ch/le-caux-palace-change-ses-grandes-chaudieres-520927066202

By Ulrike Ott Chanu / Photo top: Paula Mariane