The Latest - Sarah Talcott Blair

Sarah Talcott Blair

Sarah joined the United Religions Initiative staff in 1999, and has been working in the field of interfaith cooperation and understanding for more than ten years. As the organization's first Youth Programs Director, she coordinates the URI Global Youth Network comprising more than 600 young people from 70 countries and other major initiatives of the Young Leaders Program. Sarah became involved in interfaith work in 1999 as an intern at URI while completing her degree in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology. She was compelled by the vision of a movement that would end religiously motivated violence by overcoming the misunderstandings between religions, and she has been working in the field ever since. For the past five years, Sarah has focused her attention on young people ages 14-30 to engage and empower their leadership in fulfilling this mission. Toward this end, she has organized and facilitated youth exchanges, leadership seminars and community service projects among youth from many different religious and cultural backgrounds, in Australia, Brazil, Cyprus, India, Spain, UK, and the US. The purpose of these programs are to help young people overcome barriers between them fueled by stereotypes and misinformation about “the other”, and to support their leadership in organizing service-oriented projects of their own that strengthen civil society and social integration.  Recently, through the URI Young Leaders Program, Sarah launched a Youth Ambassadors Program to train selected young people in regions around the world in interfaith dialogue, non-violent education and interfaith peacebuilding. She coordinates this work with the URI Young Leaders Steering Committee comprised of young people in eight countries. To find out more, please visit: www.uri.org/action_areas/youth Sarah also coordinates the URI Global Youth Cooperation Circle which currently comprises more than 500 young people from 68 countries who are sharing their experiences and engaging with one another through online social networks across boundaries of geography, religious identity and cultural difference. For more information, or to get involved, please go to: http://www.uri.org/action_areas/youth/uri_global_youth_cc.  Originally a San Francisco native, Sarah lived in Cyprus for three years where she organized programs for young people from Europe and the Middle East. She also served as the first Interfaith Education Officer at the University of Surrey, UK. She is recently married and lives in Walnut Creek, California with her loving husband.