The success of PTPI depends on a global team effort. When writing the 2010 Year End Letter, we wanted to find out about your Light Bulb Moment – the moment when the importance of PTPI’s mission became clear to you and you chose to be involved. Your support ensures PTPI’s future success. Please consider a donation this year end.
Here are a few Light Bulb Moments from our members around the world. We can’t wait to hear about yours.
Rolf Dahlberg with Operation International Children co-founder Gary Sinise
Rolf Dahlberg – Nacka, Sweden
Vice Chair, PTPI Board of Directors
At age 16 I was an exchange student in the United States. When I came home, I got involved with a returnee organisation that later became a PTPI chapter. We started exchanges with Japan, Estonia and Poland, just to name a few countries. After working with the organization locally for 20 years and having the best of times with my friends, I found a new international level that was equally appealing.
Now, after 30 years, it is even more fun! Today, I travel as much as I possibly can to meet new friends around the world. It is amazing how much we have in common – we treat everyone like family. Whenever I travel somewhere, I always check to see which PTPI chapters are in the area. This past year I was in eight countries…and I’m looking forward to 2011!
Akl Fahed at a PTPI fundraiser in Beirut
Akl Fahed – Beirut, Lebanon
Founder and President, PTPI’s Beirut, Lebanon Chapter
I first learned about PTPI in 2006 from PTPI’s Middle East Liaison, who was visiting Lebanon. I started discovering how much I was already living the spirit of the organization. I immediately decided to start a chapter in Beirut! I gathered fifteen young professionals from all religious, demographic, and career backgrounds, who shared my dream. We all wanted to be role models for our people. We wanted to live diversity, enjoy it, and treasure it. We were doing that at times of utmost political conflict in the country, and I can confidently say that we made it!
As a medical doctor, I see that the mission of PTPI is no different from the mission of medicine. In medicine, we care for the people, we cure their illnesses with our know-how and skills, we communicate smartly to ease their suffering, and we fight to provide them with a better and longer life. In PTPI, we just do the exact same thing, but at a larger scale: we care for the peoples, we cure the gap between them, we communicate smartly to draw on similarities and better understand differences, and of course we fight to make the world a better place.
Shannon Riley at PTPI's Global Youth Forum
Shannon Riley – Michigan, USA
Young Generation Member
My light bulb PTPI moment was at the 2005 Global Youth Forum in Chicago when I was a freshman in high school. One of the speakers was a fellow PTPI-er, Josh Parolin, who had not only traveled the world with PTPI but had also volunteered in Uganda and co-founded his own charitable effort. Hearing his incredible story and knowing that just a few years ago he was sitting where I was made me see that it was possible for me to accomplish great things just as he had. It was then that I realized that I wanted to continue my involvement with PTPI so that one day I could share my story and inspire others as he did for me.
Megan van Eck with members of the Durban Student Chapter
Megan van Eck – Durban, South Africa
Founder and Advisor, Durban, South Africa Student Chapter
My dad came across an ad about PTPI’s Peace Camp in a magazine in Dubai in 2003. I thought to myself “if I don’t try this, then I will never know.” When I got an email: “You have been accepted to attend Peace Camp 2003 in Egypt,” I had to read this about 5 times over to make sure!
Peace Camp was literally a defining moment in my life! At 18 years old, it was the first time I had flown overseas on my own, first time staying in a hotel, and first time meeting so many people from various countries, cultures, races, religions and backgrounds. We were all humanitarians inside our hearts, all wanting to make a difference to the world. My identification lay with that-I wanted to do my bit to change the world!
PTPI lights a fire in my soul! My PTPI friends are some of the most inspiring, motivating and long-term friends I have. I will forever be grateful to PTPI for changing my life.
