Dear Friends,

Greetings of love and peace.

It’s impossible in the United States not to hear about “the election,” which is just over a year away. We hear about the presidential candidates attempting to take each other apart, beginning with the competition in their own party and then extending to members of the opposition party.

It’s impossible to pay attention to the news without hearing about the unfolding drama in Pakistan, where an increasingly isolated General Pervez Musharaf has declared martial law, dismantled the Supreme Court, and cancelled, then reinstated the elections, while many of the opposition parties are detained in prisons or under house arrest.

It’s impossible to forget the heroic vision of Buddhist monks standing up to a cruel dictatorship in Burma demanding a more open society where the people truly had a voice in the decisions that determine so much of the course of their lives.

Against this global backdrop, the URI is in the midst of its triennial experiment in global democracy. You won’t read about it in the newspapers or hear about it on the evening news, but it is an experiment that can help change the world.

Thiruvalla, India. On the morning of 9 September, a group of URI leaders from India, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and the United States, with a group of new URI friends from Australia, climbed on a bus and drove to Thiruvalla, a lush town in the lush countryside of Kerala state in southern India.