Hsieh Su-fai, a third year student of the Graduated Institute of English, TESOL program will represent Dharma Drum Mountain Organization (DDM) to attend a “Youth Peace Dialog” held by the International Youth Leadership Forum in Kenya next year between Jan. 25 and 30. She will meet people like her from all over the world discussing issues of resolving confrontation and poverty in the world and in Africa.

She is one of the few delegates representing DDM and is fully aware of the challenges she will be facing when dealing with issues regarding Africa. She thinks that the complexity of this continent derives from its multi-ethnicity and various religious groups which in turn may have led to countless civil wars and imbalance in resource distribution. Nonetheless, she is hopeful that through engaging all people involved in peaceful dialog, confrontations and conflicts will fade out.

Hsieh also represented DDM to attend the 2006 UN Global Youth Leadership Summit in October this year, meeting delegates from 192 countries and 11 non-profit organizations to discuss measures of eliminating poverty and setting worthy objectives for this millennium. During the summit, she recalls that one of the great achievements of such an event was to see representatives of rivalry countries, such as India and Pakistan, Taiwan and China could sit down to have peaceful conversations. Above all, the sincerity and compassion that people demonstrated at the summit when dealing with the issue of poverty made her faith in humanity stronger than ever before.

Upon her return from the summit, she has been invited by several universities to talk about her experience at the UN, during which she would urge Taiwan’s youths to learn how to express themselves and become good listeners. She even led group activities coaching participants how to communicate on world issues at international gatherings. As she is going to Kenya soon, she has turned down a couple of engagements. However, when she’s back, she said that she would try to make time to speak to as many youths in Taiwan as possible. It is important, she asserts, to keep talking. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )