Our priorities
We focus on four strategic priorities:
Individual Change
Our approach is always bottom-up. It all starts with people. In order to reach our mission and vision, we work on change at individual level: values, norms, mindset, attitudes and behaviour. We use Theory U as a framework to develop programs geared at individual change to prepare people to become active and participate in society. They can choose to become a peacebuilder, impact leader or social entrepreneur.
Impact leadership
See www.impactleaders.international
ImpactLeaders international achieves for its members; positive change at the personal level, finding new purpose and new pathways. Members succeed in building social initiatives and ventures; finding better solutions to generate social impact for a sustainable world.
Peacebuilding
We developed a peacebuilding model which starts a peace process from the grassroots. It all starts with people breaking the cycle of violence at an early stage and igniting a process of positive change in their communities. The train the trainer we developed is described in our book ‘Become a Peacebuilder and Impact leader’, published by Futuro Uitgevers.
Social Entrepreneurship
Social Entrepreneurship is the future – it gives back instead of only exploiting. Indicators to measure the success of entrepreneurship are People, Planet, Profit and Peace: the 4P’s. Initiatives are geared at social impact and contribution to the SDG Goals. We especially endorse SDG 6 and 16.
Our Programs
Faces of Change works with and for refugees and displaced people from all over the world and disenfranchised and marginalized groups. Estimates are that there are more than 65 million people on the move to escape war and poverty worldwide and the numbers are only growing. Additionally, we see a growing gap between the rich and the poor, leading to a rise of inequality, people having insufficient access to education, and exploitation of marginalized groups.
Through our activities and programs, we want to give these groups of people a face, instead of only speaking about them in terms of numbers which make them anonymous. Our focus is always on the individual who against all odds and within an immensely complex economic and political context, stays human and accomplishes great things. We aim to create another narrative through our activities which aim to empower the people we focus on and support, educate and train them to become agents of change. We believe in the power of individual change, as an engine and stepping stone that can create a chain reaction and become a catalyst for systemic change.
Faces of change has developed several programs throughout the course of its existence.
Programs are geared at:
Influence
Influence policy (makers) and advocate for participation of refugees & displaced people and marginalized and disenfranchised groups in society and the workforce. We set up a platform Voice for the Voiceless www.facebook.com/V4theV, when COVID hit the world and we started a campaign to not forget our target group.
Awareness
Create awareness for the potential of refugees & displaced people and marginalized and disenfranchised groups and contribute towards more tolerant, humane and inclusive societies. We attended the World Humanitarian Crisis in Istanbul in 2016 where we raised awareness about the plight of Syrian refugees and victims of the Syrian crisis.
It resulted in an interactive media project and a book ‘Stay or leave? In the footsteps of Syrian freedom fighters’. Diary of Two Activists: Journey to the Limits of Freedom was an interactive media project that explored the evolving friendship between a Dutch activist and a young Syrian activist who was forced to claim asylum in the Netherlands. Told through video diaries, the personal experiences, set against the backdrop of the Syrian War and the European refugee crisis. This project resulted in a number of dialogues and was presented during the summit.
Advocacy
Our advocacy work means that we are speaker at events and conferences and also organize meetings to that end. We have participated in numerous events organized by a wide variety of international and national organizations like Women Economic Forum, United Nations, Female Wave of Change.
Empowerment and Education
We have had several projects for our target group geared at empowerment, entrepreneurship, peacebuilding and impact leadership. We hold summer courses and have done so in: Turkey, Portugal, Belarus, The Netherlands, Macedonia, Slovenia.
ImpactLeaders international
ImpactLeaders international is a program we set up in 2018 just before COVID washed over the world. It is geared at impact leadership and peacebuilding.
ImpactLeaders international mobilizes people to explore their entrepreneurial spirit so that they can find new purpose in life and propel themselves to become leaders of social impact and sustainability. How? By inviting people on a learning journey to unleash their social entrepreneurial potential to solve the enormous challenges our society and our planet are faced with. See www.impactleaders.international
Our program on peacebuilding is a Train the Trainer through which we work with small grassroots NGO’s all over the world. We have written a book ‘Become a peacebuilder and impact leader’ , published by Futuro Uitgevers that was launched in 2020.