Join the Phoenix Scholarship

Train Reconciliation Leaders for America In celebration of our 20th anniversary, we launch the Phoenix Scholarship in honor of all graduates of the Reconciliation Leadership program.

Reconciliation Leaders, developed and implemented at the United Nations since 1991, redefine politics and use a Peacebuilding Process of Reconciliation to develop political will to sustain a longtime commitment to change American leadership for the common good through the Culture of Peace, the Global Problematique and prophecies for the future with Hopi Elder Thomas Banyanca. Virginia is founder and director of the Institute for Global Leadership, which provides a global ethic , a spiritual renaissance, as a resource for work in collaboration with the Phoenix, the bird of resurrection, regeneration, and transmutation.

The Phoenix scholarship, launched in 2021, is lovingly dedicated to all Reconciliation Leaders who embrace a shared moral and spiritual vision as well as a pracitcal application for cities and communities–for America and the world.

“The night after 9/11/01 when I was at the United Nations in New York City, I had a dream of a Phoenix rising out of the ashes of Ground Zero. The Phoenix challenged me to consider ways to knit people’s hearts and minds together in a very divided world.  The Phoenix also gave me another lens through which to see the tragedy of 9/11. After sitting in meditation with the Phoenix for 17 years, I am now being moved to act for new American leadership and a spiritual renaissance through the Institute for Global Leadership I founded after 9/11.“

Excerpted from My Soul’s Journey to Redefine Leadership: A Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of 9/11 by Virginia Swain (XLibris 2017)

Drawing on her 30-year calling and commitment to the United Nations, her friendship with author Barbara Wheeler, the late Dr. Elise Boulding, Hopi Elder Thomas Banyanca, the wisdom and leadership code gained from the life of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, Virginia saw the inspiration from her dream about the Phoenix as a way to enact the Hopi Prophecy and work with other Reconciliation Leaders to build a spiritual renaissance for a shared moral and spiritual vision for America and our world.

Seeing a Solution

One of the techniques of a Reconciliation Leader is the imaging process in which the solution to a challenge is imagined, based on the work of Virginia’s mentor, the late Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Quaker Dr. Elise Boulding’s pioneering work. Reconciliation Leaders image the solution to a challenge, believing that if you can’t “see” a solution to a challenge in your mind’s eye, it will be impossible to resolve. Reconciliation Leaders receive their image in meditation, make a timeline backwards and an action plan to bring it into current reality. See Dr. Boulding’s last book: Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History for more. Below is a large group image that imagines a new world emerging from the global ravages of COVID19. Each participant made their own timeline and action plan.

Reconciliation Leader Dr. Sarah Sayeed was the the featured speaker and received the Institute for Global Leadership’s Life Leadership Service Award when the organization celebrated its 20th anniversary on October 21, 2021.

The Institute honors the significant contribution of Dr. Sarah Sayeed to the interdisciplinary practice of Reconciliation Leadership, a program for practical idealists from all cultures, disciplines, and career paths in service to reconcile protracted conflict and restore faith in leadership and in America. The award recognizes the practice of “leadership from the inside out,”  the application of Reconciliation Leadership to build communities and her collaboration with Virginia Swain on papers concerning Reconciliation Leadership that they co-authored in 2005 and 2006 for The Human Dignity Network at Columbia University.

• A Leadership and Practice to Reconcile Challenges in a Post–September 11th World, and
• Reconciliation as Policy:  A Capacity–Building Proposal for Renewing Leadership and Development
• Moving Beyond the Victim-Perpetrator Model at the United Nations

Reconciliation Leaders wrote about their experience as Reconciliation Leaders in the Afterwords Section of Virginia’s memoir. My Soul’s Journey to Refine Leadership: A New Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of 9/11.