Against the background of the ongoing hostile relations between India and Pakistan and the urgent need for improved regional cooperation in Afghanistan, the student exchange was concerned with contemporary issues, primarily the absence of a real strategy for effective peace processes in the region. The meeting between students and potential future leaders from the three countries was perceived as a unique opportunity to foster mutual understanding, to bridge the information gap among the participants and to create a basis for future cooperation and dialogue. The forum aimed at creating a foundation for promoting peace and friendship between the young generations and participants were eager to talk about how the neighbors could shed decades of distrust and live in harmony with each other.
Mariam Hotaki, a female Afghan participant of the Trilateral Student Exchange Program summarized her impressions as follows:
"I wouldn’t trade the 15 days that I spent together with the group with anything. Even though it was a rather short period of time, it taught us all many lessons. We learned how to be hopeful and how to believe in each other. We all had the same goal. We were all looking for the same answer. Peace. And we realized that we cannot do it without one another, that it was time for us to be united regardless of the borders, that it was time to put an end to the blame game.
Some events change our lives and our ways of thinking, and then they turn into memories that always stay with us. The Trilateral Student Exchange Program was definitely one of those. I had heard about the program from a friend. I was extremely excited to be a part of it. I wanted to visit India and Pakistan and learn more about the different cultures and beliefs. The program, however, was way more than that - as I found later. Apart from the fact that I got to meet some of the greatest, most intelligent people, every minute of the program was a valuable lesson. I learned way more than I had expected. I learned that despite all the differences – or among all the differences - we are very similar. And to find similarities in differences is not easy, my friend.
This is history in the making. Be a part of it."
Following the successes of the dialogue in 2009, a new round of the Trilateral Student Exchange Program is currently being planned to take place in 2012. Engaging the youth in the region to meet in an open dialogue with each other represents a first step towards strategic stability in South Asia and may foster hope for regional peace in the future.