Together in Practice: Closing Reflection on the 2025 PPA

The Peace Practice Alliance (PPA) closed its sixth year in 2025 with a global cohort of 45 participants representing 30 countries. Over six months, this community journeyed together in practice, dialogue, and discovery, weaving a fabric of connection that stretched across cultures, traditions, and time zones. What began in February as a gathering of individuals soon became a living expression of global community, leaders united by their shared commitment to cultivating peace in themselves, their relationships, and the world around them.

What makes the PPA unique is not only the frameworks, reflections, or practices it introduces, but the way participants embody them. Throughout the program, leaders offered their own wisdom through storytelling, poetry, song, prayer, and presence. They reminded one another that peace is not an abstract idea but a daily practice, nurtured in quiet choices as well as bold action. As one participant said, “Peace is a verb.” Another reflected, “Even in the darkest times it is possible to connect within yourself and find strength.” Again and again, participants pointed to the truth that peace lives in relationships, whether with self, with others, or with the wider human family. By listening deeply, we create space for healing and transformation to take root.

Our closing call carried the fullness of this collective journey. Leaders spoke of carrying forward healing and transformation, new friendships and global colleagues, wisdom and the courage to ask for help. Words like Ubuntu, oneness, and family filled the space, echoing what many described as a sense of belonging to an “endless global family.” A Learning Committee member captured these offerings, writing down simple yet powerful expressions that arose in the conversation: “We are growing together.” “We are peace believers.” “Small choices matter.” “Thank you for being a true family.” “My dear beloved, you are a statement to what is possible.” These voices, drawn from every corner of the world, remind us that peace leadership is both deeply personal and profoundly collective.

The PPA continues to evolve because of those who participate in it. The development of the PPA over the years has come from listening and has been carried forward by the people in it. Each new cohort writes the next chapter through the ways they show up for one another and the visions they carry back into their communities. This year affirmed once again that peace grows through reciprocity, trust, and care, a “potluck of giving and receiving energy.”

As we look back on the 2025 journey, we celebrate not only what was learned but also the way participants lived into it, through honesty, vulnerability, courage, and compassion. The words shared during our closing continue to reverberate, reminders that peace is possible, that connection sustains us, and that small, intentional acts of care ripple outward in ways we cannot measure. The PPA is not an endpoint but an invitation: to live peace as practice, to carry it into the ordinary rhythms of life, and to trust in its quiet, enduring power to transform.

Thank you for being part of this journey. To learn more about the program, visit euphrates.org/peacepracticealliance. 

Our next PPA cohort will begin next August, 2026 with applications opening in May 2026. If you would like to receive updates, please email info@euphrates.org with “Interested in 2026 PPA” in the subject line.