Pears Foundation

The world is increasingly polarised and we need new skills to navigate this. We need to be able to disagree well, to ask questions and to be able to engage thoughtfully with narratives and opinions that we find challenging. We believe that skills like these can be learned and practised. The organisations we work with all help to ‘build the muscle’ for difficult conversation and equip individuals and communities with the ability to listen and learn across divides.

We give unrestricted funding to the following organisations, helping them to learn, grow and reach more people.

The Center for International Experiential Learning (CIEL)

Founded in 2021, CIEL inspires critical thinking and creative engagement to counter division and polarisation. It does this through experiential learning and immersive international travel in conflict-affected regions.

The Center brings together experienced educators and experts to organise tailored international experiential learning programmes for groups and organisations from universities to community partners, professional organisations and private individuals. The programmes are all based on CIEL’s philosophy of experiential learning rooted in intercultural exchange.

Programme participants are provided with rigorous pre-travel education and then travel to various conflict-affected regions (at present the Middle East, Northern Ireland and Vietnam) to experience and learn first-hand through interactions with conflict and post-conflict actors on all sides. Upon their return, participants are empowered to develop a deeper understanding and ongoing engagement with the region and apply lessons learned about conflict resolution. They are able use the skills they have acquired to engage in difficult conversations across divides and to address issues of division and polarisation in their local context.

The Center’s founder, Dr Daniel Wehrenfenning, also runs training workshops for Pears grantees on how to manage difficult conversations as part of our Professional Development programme.

Partner since: 2021
Funding invested: £500,000

Faith in Leadership

Since 2007 Faith in Leadership has been bringing together diverse groups of British faith leaders, enabling them to build their networks and learn leadership skills together, to ‘disagree productively’ and to work together for the benefit of society.

The Senior Faith Leaders Programme (SFLP) enables current Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders to deepen their leadership skills while building ongoing relationships with senior leaders from other faith groups.  The programme does not aim to create agreement on theology, politics or any other subject, nor does it aim to create a neutral middle ground. Instead, it aims to create an environment where individuals can disagree productively and intelligently on issues from antisemitism and Islamophobia to the impact of Empire on faith communities and the role of faith in British society today. In the course of learning to disagree well, participants develop leadership skills which can be effectively applied in a changing world and also often find themselves agreeing on various shared goals, thereby building long-term friendships and partnerships.

Partner since: 2015
Funding invested: £585,000

Solutions not Sides

Solutions not Sides is an education programme that provides powerful, humanising encounters, diverse narratives and critical-thinking tools to empower young people with the knowledge, empathy and skills to promote dialogue and conflict resolution, and to challenge prejudice in the UK.

Working in secondary schools and through its own student leadership programme, Solutions not Sides tackles Antisemitism, Islamophobia and polarisation around the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the UK. It enables young people to see those affected as fellow human beings, helping them to understand and embrace the complexity of the problem, and empowering them towards seeking solutions.

Solutions Not Sides’ approach is based on ten principles including willingness to accept the legitimacy of others’ personal stories and experiences and to model respectful disagreement.

Partner since: 2016
Funding to date: £600,00

University College London Impartial Chairs Programme

Our relationship with University College London is one of Pears Foundations longest standing partnerships, spanning a number of different programmes and departments. One of UCL’s core values is ‘disagreeing well’. This has led to the development of initiatives that explore the University’s role as a place where a wide variety of conflicting opinions and ideas exist and are expressed.

Launched in 2023 the Impartial Chairs programme is a new skills development programme, designed and run by Students’ Union UCL. The aim of the programme is to equip the next generation of leaders with the confidence and resilience to debate and discuss a range of topics in a respectful and sensitive way at UCL and beyond.

The programme has been designed to broaden students’ horizons, enabling them to reflect on their own biases and how they shape their views of different people and communities. Through experiential learning opportunities (including a trip to Northern Ireland with the Center for International Experiential Learning) and a bespoke training programme, students have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of division and conflict, develop their awareness of the complexities around navigating free speech, to build the skills needed to tackle difficult conversations and to enhance their facilitation and influencing skills.

Through this programme UCL hopes to create resilient and reflective student leaders and to increase the number of student-facilitated debates, contributing to a vibrant culture of dialogue and discourse at UCL.

This programme forms part of, whilst also being distinct from, UCL’s Disagreeing Well campaign.

Partner (of this programme) since: 2024
Funding to date: £92,600