Programs in Development

Center for the Advancement of Heart-Mind Education

Inspired by the Dalai Lama's strong interest in education, the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education is working to advance education that addresses the full capacities of children. As an important part of this initiative, the Center is planning to establish a continuing program to support expert knowledge, public awareness and specific initiatives promoting the emotional, social and intellectual development of youth. This educational resource will aim to ensure that in British Columbia, and beyond, the teaching of mindful awareness and compassion is embedded as a basic component of the primary and secondary school curriculum.

CAHME will work collaboratively with school boards, universities and other educational institutions. It will engage with researchers, school authorities, teachers and parents with the goal of developing educational programming and enabling the exchange and dissemination of relevant ideas, techniques and best practices.

The Center will consult with local and international advisory groups, complementing the work of other agencies. It will be distinctive in its local attention, by seeking to stimulate the emergence of the Vancouver area and British Columbia as a world centre in employing educational approaches that emphasize the heart-mind connection. It will be international in its reach and connections through association with prominent researchers and with agencies such as the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in the U.S.

The center, and the resulting diffusion of research demonstrating the linkages between emotional and cognitive development, may lead forward to the creation of a collaborative school that will model heart-mind education throughout its curriculum.

XIV Dalai Lama Global Scholars and Fellows Program

The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education has committed itself to exploring the possibility of establishing in collaboration with other parties a XIV Dalai Lama Global Scholars and Fellows Program to recognize and advance the learning of talented young people who have demonstrated a commitment to compassion in action. Each year, the Program would select and engage young people from North America and throughout the world, based on their demonstrated capacity to advance the connections between the Dalai Lama's values and interests and the creation of a peaceful and sustainable world.  Those selected at the undergraduate or young professional levels would be supported in pursuing paths of study or other approved activities for one or more years. They would come together periodically at the Dalai Lama Center in Vancouver to learn from each other and from distinguished guests and mentors.

The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education is currently sponsoring a feasibility study regarding this major global initiative to clarify its vision, activities and anticipated outcomes, and to assess the breadth of potential support. The initiation of awards identified with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama would advance a model of recognition and support for young people that is diverse, inclusive, interdependent and comprehensive – clearly attuned to the new realities, challenges and opportunities of today’s complex and turbulent era in human development.

Future programs and initiatives

The Dalai Lama Center believes that the peace is advanced through the engagement of a broad and diverse community, locally and globally. Hence, the Center will develop community and global programs that engage people through education, dialogue and research.

The Center also has a long-term goal to establish a physical Center which will provide a home for its programs and function as a special gathering place and focal point for people of all walks of life from near and far. When built, this will be the only Center in the world that bears the Dalai Lama’s name. Like the Carter Center and the proposed Tutu Peace Center, the DLC will radiate positive social change not just in Vancouver, but throughout the world. This unique institution will be an important global legacy providing a permanent home for the secular commitments of the Dalai Lama: to advance his twin goals of personal growth and acting for the greater good. Currently we are considering locations in the downtown core of Vancouver.