For twenty years, the EastWest Institute has boldly responded to the challenges of a world in transformation. Its current areas of heaviest involvement, the Balkans, Russia, Ukraine and neighboring states have a huge unfinished agenda. The EWI Board of Directors has made clear its commitment to have EWI remain deeply engaged for decades more until the struggle of transition is assured.
As we look to the future, it is clear that the EWI transatlantic partnership of Europeans and North Americans continues to widen as Europe itself enlarges and the Eurasian bridges of Russia, Ukraine and Turkey and their neighbors continue their transformation. The challenges to the values that are core to EWI will be no less daunting. In fact the challenge will be more difficult as EWI continues its movement eastward over the coming decades.
A new dimension is growing in EWI's work, Eurasia. Here is the prime space where the 21st Century fight for democracy, peace and economic prosperity will be waged. Here Europeans and Americans from Vancouver to Vladivostok join hands with colleagues in Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of the Middle East.
This 20th story shall remain unfinished. It is the story of how an independent group of men and women of diverse nationalities, religions, professions and experiences come together united in their values and prepared to make a commitment to work together as agents of change.
In 1962, John Mroz was in his second year in high school in a small town in western Massachusetts. His father, a dentist, asked his three sons at the dinner table what they wanted to do with their lives. John's answer perplexed his Dad for years. He answered—“to be a global change agent."
Every person who has become involved in the work of the EastWest Institute for these twenty years should add "global change agent" to his or her resume, for indeed the story of EastWest is, in the end, such a story.