Communities affected by fragility often lack endogenous forces that they can mobilize to cope with adverse changes and challenges in a sustainable and resilient manner. Generating such endogenous forces requires resources. An ongoing availability of skills, expertise, and information is indispensable to obtain a critical mass of individuals who can constitute the force that will drive positive change both daily and in case of extraordinary circumstances, such as natural disasters, economic shocks, or episodes of violence. To ensure that communities where we operate can avail such resources, our first effort when we start a program there is to establish vectors of change which are locally based platforms to channel key resources at the grassroots. WPDI has created two such vectors, cohorts of young leaders, the Youth Peacemakers, who are trained and tasked to initiate transformative change, and a network of Community Learning Centers (CLCs), where individuals can find safe spaces for learning skills and values.
