3 Peacebuilding Goals For All Of Us in 2026
To start off 2026, we checked in with Nealin Parker, Executive Director here at CG-USA, about her peacebuilding goals for the upcoming year. While there’s so much we can dream about and push toward, Nealin focused on two sets of goals: one for the everyday American and one for herself.
Here’s what she said.
What I hope for every person in this country:
That we internalize that we are the people who write this next chapter for our country. We feel our agency and we manifest it. We don’t have time for despair and it does not have enough hold on us. We start small, maybe, with what is immediately around us, and then we keep getting bigger.
That we seek to understand what and who we are afraid of. We lean in instead of giving up. We remember that we can do hard and brave things, and that one of those is doing the work to listen and learn, and once we have done that, to work together on our shared problems.
That we fight hard for a better future, but we don’t fight dirty. We remember that the world we’re going for is one where we thrive, not just survive, with people not like us.
What I hope for me:
That I renew my commitment to peacebuilding. Peacebuilding isn’t a wedding, it’s a marriage. It isn’t a one-off party with endless toasts and cake. It’s work. Work whose value exceeds the effort. But I can’t just let it coast. I have to invest in making peacebuilding solve real problems for me to want to keep going, and in 2026 I’m going to renew that commitment. Might even have a ceremony. With cake.
That I take the long view, but keep at it every day. Most peacebuilding takes a generation to truly blossom. I can’t get ruffled by the daily ups and downs and keep focused on what I need to do. So even as I work every day, I keep one eye on the horizon: the answer I want to be able to tell my children when they ask “and what did you do in that time?”
That I have a good time. I don’t think peacebuilding needs martyrs right now, I think it needs magnets. This work is joyful work, it is inspiring work, it is rejuvenating work. It can fill you with possibilities. It begs you to dream. It fosters and requires community. It is affirming. It is filling. It is the stuff that the best of life is made of. I want to live that joy loudly this year.
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