Every year, National Peace Foundation hosts a number of delegations that travel to different locations all over the United States. Program activities for each delegation are carefully crafted to meet the needs of program participants to ensure that meaningful, lasting connections are made during their time in the US. In 2009, NPF will host 11 delegations in communities ranging from Washington, DC to Los Angeles, CA. By the end of the 2009 season, NPF will have hosted nearly 185 delegations, totaling over 1100 delegates, in 90 different communities around the United States.

For one week, five promising future leaders from one of the countries of the former Soviet Union (including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine) visit a community in the United States. Depending on the group, they may travel to a place as prominent in the world as New York City or to a place as inauspicious as Fargo, North Dakota. These leaders hold positions in government, educational and cultural institutions, law, environmental research and policy, social services and other public service areas in their countries. They come to experience and learn about democracy, American culture, and their areas of expertise, and to build bridges of peace through professional collaboration with their American counterparts.

For many, this is their first trip to the United States. They step off a plane and are immediately thrust into another world: a multi-cultural world of new ideas, unexpected conveniences, a different language and just about every kind of food imaginable, all in the name of citizen diplomacy and international exchange. The differences are what they notice most at first. Then, as they participate in forums, discussions, demonstrations, observation of the processes of government, immersion into cutting-edge programs in their fields, cultural events, and interaction with their host families, this other world begins to seem less foreign. At the same time, the delegates seem less foreign to their American counterparts.

NPF participates in these programs because we believe that peace requires active engagement. As noted in the post-World War II UNESCO constitution, "since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed." NPF builds these "defenses of peace" the through the professional collegial connection and friendship developed during the Open World programs. Though this approach may seem less sophisticated than brokering agreements between the leaders of disparate nations, it has the potential to reach further into the hearts and minds of people.

As 2007 host coordinator Holly M. R. Witte of Cornelius, Oregon said: "[The Open World program] is a magnificent program that promotes talk about democracy, viewing democracy in action and, perhaps the only thing that will change our damaged world - getting to know each other one-on-one so we are truly connected to each other, feel responsible for each other and cannot do harm to each other because of mutual respect and friendship." Each delegation is a small strike against the ignorance that begets war. 

The funder for this program is the Open World Leadership Center.