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A global WSCF campaign empowering young people to challenge dehumanization, decolonize peacebuilding, and strengthen advocacy for justice and solidarity.

The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) is proud to share "Reclaiming Otherness: Youth Building Peace with Justice", a global campaign that empowers young people to challenge dehumanization and strengthen peacebuilding through a decolonial perspective.

Officially launched on 19 December 2025 during the WSCF Christmas Prayer for Peace, the campaign will unfold throughout 2026, marking WSCF's 131st anniversary. It is a global educational, advocacy, and communications initiative rooted in the WSCF Peacebuilding Program and developed through a collaborative process involving regional offices, Student Christian Movements (SCMs), young leaders, program coordinators, communications staff, and partners from across the Federation.

The campaign is the outcome of a year of collective reflection and peacebuilding work carried out across the Federation in 2025. It builds on the experiences, analyses, and recommendations emerging from the WSCF International Training Program: Peace, Dialogue and Cooperation in the Middle East (Egypt and Lebanon); the Frame the Future peacebuilding project in Europe, including activities in Poland, Northern Ireland, Finland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the Youth Peace Summit in Asia Pacific (Taiwan); the Youth for Peace trainings in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and the joint Europe–Middle East initiative Future and a Hope, held in Italy. Together, these regional processes revealed shared patterns of exclusion, violence, and resistance while highlighting the creativity and leadership of young people in building just peace within their own contexts.

The campaign responds to a world marked by escalating wars, forced displacement, colonial occupation, racism, authoritarianism, ecological destruction, economic injustice, and growing polarization. These realities are sustained by systems that decide whose lives are valued, whose voices are heard, and whose communities are rendered invisible. WSCF believes that building sustainable peace requires confronting these structures while centering the knowledge, experiences, and leadership of those most affected by them.

To reclaim otherness is to recognize that the "Other"—the marginalized person, the displaced community, the oppressed people, and even the wounded Earth—is not a threat but a call to justice. For WSCF, this is not only a philosophical reflection but a lived reality. From Palestine to Sudan, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Colombia, Mexico, Lebanon, and beyond, young people experience the consequences of violence while leading courageous efforts for justice and reconciliation. They are not merely beneficiaries of peacebuilding—they are agents of transformation. They build dialogue across faiths, defend their lands and communities, reclaim memory through education, and challenge systems that perpetuate fear, exclusion, and inequality.

Throughout 2026, the campaign will develop through four interconnected stages: Reflect, fostering critical conversations on otherness and dehumanization; Learn, creating spaces for collective learning and exchange; Act, equipping young people with advocacy tools and opportunities for public engagement; and Celebrate, sharing stories of hope, resilience, and peacebuilding from across the global fellowship.

The implementation of the campaign has been designed as a participatory process that invites the active engagement of the WSCF fellowship at every stage. Beginning with its official launch during the WSCF Christmas Prayer for Peace, the campaign continues with a communications phase (May–December 2026), featuring the publication of educational and advocacy content across WSCF's digital platforms. It also includes the Collective Museum of Peacebuilding, the collaborative development of the Decolonizing Digital Advocacy Toolkit, the WSCF World Café Conversations, and concludes with a global closing event. Together, these milestones create spaces for awareness-raising, storytelling, dialogue, consultation, learning, and celebration, ensuring that the campaign is shaped collectively by the experiences, voices, and leadership of students, Senior Friends, staff, partners, and local movements across the Federation.

This campaign also invites Christian and multifaith youth to live their faith not as a boundary, but as a bridge; not as neutrality, but as a commitment to justice. It affirms that peace is more than the absence of conflict—it is the restoration of dignity, the recognition of every person's humanity, and the transformation of the structures that produce violence.

As the campaign unfolds through storytelling, educational resources, dialogues, digital advocacy, and collective action, WSCF invites its members, partners, churches, donors, Senior Friends, and allies to join this journey toward a world where every life is grievable, every community is seen, and every young person can shape a future grounded in justice and hope.

Join our Campaign!

Share our content on social media!

• Campaign concept video
• What does "reclaiming otherness" mean?
• How has colonialism shaped the way we understand certain regions, peoples and conflict today?
• When does faith become a tool of domination?
• When they called it "development", who defines it, whose lands are at risk, and who pays the price?

Campaign launch: WSCF Christmas Prayer for Peace

The WSCF Global Campaign "Reclaiming Otherness: Youth Building Peace with Justice" was officially launched on 19 December 2025 during the WSCF Christmas Prayer for Peace. Students, Senior Friends, and partners from across the global fellowship gathered online to pray, light candles, and reaffirm our shared commitment to peace with justice. This moment of prayer and solidarity marked the beginning of a global journey, calling us to recognize the "Other" not as a threat, but as an invitation to compassion, responsibility, and transformative peace.

Click here to watch the launch.

Join WSCF's Collective Museum of Peacebuilding!

What does peacebuilding look like through the eyes of the WSCF fellowship?

As part of the 131st Anniversary of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), we are launching the Collective Museum of Peacebuilding—a collaborative digital space where our global fellowship can preserve and celebrate the memories that have shaped WSCF's commitment to peace with justice.

For more than a century, WSCF has accompanied generations of students and young people in building peace through dialogue, solidarity, advocacy, faith, and transformative action. Behind every program, campaign, workshop, prayer, exchange, and act of accompaniment are stories that deserve to be remembered and shared.

We warmly invite SCMers, Senior Friends, staff, partners, and everyone who has been part of the WSCF journey to contribute to this living archive.

What can you share? Your contribution can be anything that represents your experience of peacebuilding within WSCF, including:

• A photograph from a local, regional, interregional, or global activity.
• A short story or personal reflection.
• A memorable campaign or advocacy initiative.
• A workshop, training, pilgrimage, or exchange that inspired you.
• A video, artwork, poster, or any creative expression.
• A testimony of how WSCF has shaped your understanding of peacebuilding with justice.

Every contribution, no matter how big or small, becomes part of our shared history and reflects the diversity, creativity, and resilience of our global fellowship.

Share your peacebuilding memory and become part of this collective legacy. Together, we can preserve the stories that continue to inspire new generations to build peace with justice.

Participate now: WSCF 131st Anniversary Peacebuilding Museum

Decolonizing Digital Advocacy Toolkit!

One of the key deliverables of the campaign is the Decolonizing Digital Advocacy Toolkit, a practical resource designed to strengthen ethical, inclusive, and justice-oriented digital advocacy among young people. The toolkit is being developed collaboratively by a working group composed of WSCF staff, student representatives from across the regions, and external advisors, reflecting the campaign's commitment to collective learning, shared leadership, and diverse perspectives.

Designed as a practical and accessible resource, the toolkit will be freely available for download and will equip young people with tools to develop impactful messages, lead advocacy campaigns, and promote peace with justice within their local contexts. Through this initiative, the campaign encourages youth to reimagine digital advocacy as a space for dialogue, solidarity, and transformative action.

The finalized toolkit, translated into English, Spanish, French, and Arabic, will be officially launched during a global online event in December 2026.

WSCF World Café Conversations

Another key milestone of the campaign is the WSCF World Café Conversations, a series of 2 global online dialogue spaces that will take place on Tuesday, October 6 at 13 GMT and Thursday, October 15 at 16GMT. These conversations will bring together SCMs from different regions, the WSCF Interregional Office, and regional staff to reflect on the campaign journey, take stock of its achievements, and collectively envision the next steps.

The World Café Conversations are designed to strengthen participation and collective ownership by ensuring that the campaign continues to be shaped by the experiences and perspectives of the WSCF fellowship. During these sessions, participants will also provide feedback on the Decolonizing Digital Advocacy Toolkit, helping refine its content before a final peer review with partner organizations.

Register for the session of your choice: 
Session 1: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Fu5FxEmHSlObAAZfu4uLhA
Session 2: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/TRtEFYfvRmK5cBGIKF9jJA

*Interpretation will be available. Please complete the registration form and let us know if you need it!

Closing Online Open Event 

The campaign will conclude with a global online closing event in December 2026, bringing together the WSCF fellowship, partners, and friends to celebrate a year of collective learning, advocacy, and peacebuilding.

The event will mark the completion of the campaign's year-long implementation by highlighting its achievements, sharing key lessons learned, and reaffirming WSCF's collective commitment to building peace with justice. During the gathering, the final version of the Decolonizing Digital Advocacy Toolkit—available in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic—will be officially launched and presented to the global fellowship.

The closing event will also include a Global Prayer for Peace, celebrating the spiritual foundations of WSCF's peacebuilding witness, and will open a conversation on the future of the campaign by presenting possible pathways and opportunities for its continuation beyond 2026.

The Universal Day of Prayer for Students (UDPS) is one of the longest established ecumenical events. The WSCF publishes ecumenical services of worship on a theme that relates to the Federation's theme of study for the year or responds to current events and issues of concern to the world's students.

UDPS 2026