For 20 years, we've brought young adults together using digital technology to understand each other across differences, forge lasting connections and embrace their own power to activate change.COVID-19 has only heightened the need for dialogues rooted in empathy. At Soliya, we hear the call to action of this moment, and we commit to serving over 5,000 college students in the U.S. and around the world with free, facilitated digital roundtables that provide a space to listen - and be heard.
COVID-19 has heightened interpersonal anxieties and revealed systemic inequities in the U.S. and around the world, laying bare the ways societies compound the trauma experienced by marginalized peoples. The same sociopolitical conversations that have flared in our communities manifest on college campuses globally, with young adults tasked to conceive of futures freed from long perpetuated injustices.
Through facilitated, sustained online dialogue sessions over the course of 4 to 8 weeks, we will bring college students together across sociopolitical silos to discuss themes of identity and citizenship through the lens of current events. Engagement counters division, and participants will strengthen their critical thinking, collaboration and leadership skills, and empathy, preparing them to mitigate coercive conflict in higher education and beyond.
Based upon data from 17 years of programming with a combined reach of 20,000+ direct beneficiaries, participants will grow to be inclusive leaders who approach problems with curiosity and social responsibility. They will reflect at minimum a 10% average increase in self-other overlap. Approximately 80% of participants will deem themselves more capable of challenging stereotypes and reducing fear and hate in their own communities, with 85% more confident in their ability to transform conflict.
