Tatiana Minbaeva

                                                           "My life is my message" (Mahatma Gandhi)

While In India in 2005 during Action for Life 3 program (leadership training program in South-East Asia), I saw how nations are made up of people like me, who want to make this world a better place, yet have some dark corner filled with hatred and dishonesty in their heart. For fourteen years I had difficult relationships with my grandmother. But I realized that I was trying to make her feel guilty and that this would not solve the problem. I looked inside myself and found my own wrongs and my part in the problem and I said "Sorry".

So I can say that my academic and professional experience has been tied to my personal life in a quest for building peace and searching for answers to injustice, violence and corruption.

In early 2000 as a member of a newly formed democratic society in Russia with other F4F friends (Foundation for Freedom- IofC program in Eastern Europe) we founded a non-government organisation (NGO) and tried to be aware and responsible for the issues we faced as students by running projects like Scholl's program, anticorruption campaign, etc.

After being a participant with Action for Life 3, I wanted to understand how principles of transparency and value-based economic development, work in the corporate sector. I worked in Moscow for 2 years and this exposure to the corporate experience showed me how a value-based approach is as relevant and needed in the business world as it is within the development sector.

In 2008 I joined 'Action for Life 4' an IofC international leadership training program as a Coordinator and Financial Manager. Being treasurer of the program, at the time of the financial crises, strengthened my conviction that integrity is critical in financial issues. I saw how difficult it is to bring financial integrity into people's awareness, but it is necessary for being successful and competent in a society with a capitalistic based economy.

I discovered my passion for "peace through sustainable economic development". I see my role in developing theories that shape a different economic system and policies.

Being a Rotary Peace Fellow will help me to build an academic frame around my practical work. I would like to work on research and development of a "new economic model of peace". My experience has shown me the deeply interconnected nature of large-scale systematic problems, like the financial crisis. It felt most severely by developing countries, which could lead to a rise in conflict and struggles for power. I feel an urgency to understand and look at new models for mutual cooperation between countries that needs to be discovered at this time in history.

I would like my work to be focused on shaping a complex systematic approach that would bring about consistent change towards a values-based economy and global governance, and give hope to developing countries to have a chance to play a role in shaping history.

We need to cooperate in building up and implementing such positive changes in society. If we cannot discover the way to make a values-based shift that includes all citizens and nations, then the problems will not be solved.