The Elders were founded in 2007 to work as a team of independent leaders tackling big global issues like poverty, peace and climate change. They promote dialogue to build peace and support efforts to alleviate human suffering, particularly caused by extreme poverty, injustice, or intolerance.
The group was initially inspired by Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel and Nelson Mandela and is currently headed by Kofi Annan. They are all mature statesmen and women, and humanitarian activists who have no political or career ambition to cloud their vision of a peaceful, fair and sustainable world.
They are great examples of courageous, compassionate and devoted commitment, regularly visiting places of great risk to mediate and facilitate dialogue between seemingly intransigent parties. They hold political leaders to account for atrocities and support solution based attention for some of humanity's greatest challenges. They seem to hold a global vision and a set of global values that shape and drive their influence.
Individually they each have remarkable stories, achievements and experience, and collectively they represent some hope for our planet and our survival. I highly recommend them to you as role models for the kind of conscious leadership our world needs today.