Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue

“We listen and speak with respect to deepen mutual understanding and trust.” - URI Principle 5
SunDABT CC inviting interfaith dialogue

URI Cooperation Circles must include members of at least three different religions or traditions. By engaging in respectful conversations, members learn, share and build bridges of understanding.

Examples of our work in this Action Area:

  • Sun Devils Are Better Together (SunDABT), a university student group and URI Cooperation Circle, creates safe spaces for people to ask respectful questions about other religions by holding signs that read, "Meet a Muslim," "Meet a Jew," etc.

  • The URI global community celebrates UN World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW) in the first week of February each year, with grassroots interfaith events in many communities.

  • Campinas CC in Brazil hosted an interfaith gathering and invited representatives of multiple religious and faith beliefs to talk about life and death from the perspectives of their own traditions.
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Stories

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Ektaan CC opens new computer training center at local Mosque

Asia
Education
Health and Social Services
Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue
Media

Dear Friends,

Namaste and greetings of peace from India. Here are some pictures of another computer center which opened a few weeks ago with the help of the members from the local Mosque. This is the first time in the area that a computer training program has been run by URI inside the Mosque premises. URI member Md. Sarfaraz oversees the project. We expect to run a complete educational program and engage the larger community, especially targeting children from different communities to attend classes at the center. This will allow children from other communities to an opportunity to attend the Mosque and become familiar with other religions through engagement and open interaction with other children. This initiative had been planned for a long time. So it’s now being born, we are moving forward with much concrete steps to develop the plan further for greater impact.

Biswadeb Chakraborty
Ektaan CC

Tubalar celebrations

Europe
Community Building
Indigenous Peoples
Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue
Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation

Altaian ethnic groups have gone through, what can be called “ clinic death” in the XXth century, nowadays it is the time of “recovering” which is not an easy process. “Progress of humanity can not be led by incidents, the Creator have no “small deeds or small people”, for everything in the life serves to the Big”-says the Eastern Wisdom. In the course of Altaian history the biggest syoks(tribes) have become more vivid, while some small of them have almost been erased out of the people’s memory towards the end of the XXth century, so we see a great spiritual potential for Tubalars in the words of the Eastern Wisdom. The time of the revival of Tubalar consciousness, has come; they should become recognized as a respected, knowledgeable syok within sacred Altai and within a big World Nation of People.

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Interfaith in Pakistan: URI Regional Coordinator Father James Channan Speaks Out for Unity Made Visible

Asia
Community Building
Interfaith and Intercultural Dialogue
Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation

“We have 9/11 every day in Pakistan,” said Fr. James Channan, Regional Coordinator for the United Religions Initiative (URI) in Pakistan, speaking on “Interfaith in Pakistan” at the Chapel at Croton Falls on Sunday, July 10, 2011. He explained that more than 35,000 people in his country have been killed by terrorists, making ordinary life very unsafe. There are now guards outside of mosques and churches. And it was a particular shock when Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who had been appointed Federal Minister for Minorities, was assassinated in March 2011 for his stance on the blasphemy laws often used as an excuse for persecution. Fr. Channan believes that ignorance is the root cause of terrorism and thus education is the real key to a brighter future.