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Celebrating the World Interfaith Harmony Week - where grassroots organisers throughout the world will be hosting and promoting events to foster tolerance and acceptance across religions and cultures - this webinar will bring together a panel of grassroots activists from around the globe.  It will showcase different kinds of interfaith and intercultural activities to disseminate and motivate people to adopt good practices into their own initiatives. Highlighting contributions that grassroots interfaith and intercultural activities offer to making more inclusive, resilient and cohesive societies, speakers will share their experiences in implementing their activities and initiatives, discussing why they use the approaches they do, and the challenges they have faced and overcome.

SPEAKERS

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Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović

Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović, Ph.D., is Project Coordinator of the Network for Dialogue at KAICIID Europe Region Programme, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with the University College of Cork’s Department of Religious Studies, where she served as a visiting professor in 2017. Since 2021, she has been a member of the Scientific Committee for Religious Freedom in Barcelona at the Ramon Llull University. From 2022 she joined European funded project COREnet COST action – Connecting Theory and Practical Issues of Migration and Religious Diversity. She has participated in numerous scientific conferences, published three monographs and one manual, edited an international collection of papers, and published - as an author or co-author - several  papers in journals and collections. Her research interests include religious minorities, religion and migration, interreligious dialogue and social inclusion of refugees and migrants. Aleksandra is a KAICIIDInternational Fellow,  2018 cohort.

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Pastor Yohanna Buru

Pastor Yohanna is founder of the Peace, Revival and Reconciliation Foundation in Nigeria.  He was the first prize winner of the World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW) in 2022. He led a team of Nigerian religious leader volunteers who utilised social events and sports competitions to bridge the existing gap between Muslim and Christian communities within the state. They engaged the radio, television, newspapers and social media to mobilise Christian and -Muslim scholars to enlighten different faith-based organizations on the need for sustained peace, love, unity and forgiveness. The campaign also went a long way to help towards reducing the ethno-religious instability in the northern part of the country.

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Ana Victoria Peláez Ponce

Ana Victoria Peláez is a social researcher on gender, migration and social inclusion. She has been a university professor for more than 20 years. Since 2001, she has coordinated the Guatemalan Interreligious Development Dialogue and is dedicated to sharing common values, perspectives, and visions with Christian, Jewish and Mayan individuals. Victoria hopes to find ways to empower marginalized groups to become more involved in their own social and economic growth and the full realization of a higher quality of life. Within this framework, she believes that religions have an important role to play in sharing experiences, values and guidance. Victoria will be speaking about her initiative training secondary school students in peacebuilding to prevent conflicts in local environments. The project includes three components: a seminar, teaching materials and systematization.

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Wiwin Siti Aminah Rohmawati

Wiwin S.A. Rohmawati is the Director of Center for Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, Nahdlatul Ulama University Yogyakarta, Indonesia and teachs “multiculturalism” and “gender in Islam” at Darussalam Islamic College, Ciamis, West Java. She was selected to be a KAICIID Fellow In 2015. Through her initiative she founded an interfaith women’s community called Srikandi Lintas Iman (Srili). She is also a former vice president of Fatayat NU Yogyakarta as well as senior staff at the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue in Indonesia. Currently she is finishing her Ph. D. on Interfaith Study at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University. The topic of her dissertation is “Women’s Agency in the Forum for Interreligious Harmony of Indonesia".

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Harry Myo Lin

Harry Myo Lin is from Myanmar and KAICIID Programme officer for Asia Region. Harry has extensive experience in building up grassroots peacebuilding initiatives into impactful and sustainable movements. Harry will focus on the sustainability aspects of developing a grassroots project, using the PMI initiative in Myanmar and his experience working in various roles as a local focal person for many international organisations as illustrations. The subject of his MBA dissertation was on the sustainability of non-profits actors in Myanmar and he is a firm promoter of using his model in the interfaith world.

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Isabel Tootill and Maja Markovic

Isabel Tootill and Maja Markovic will share the journey of their joint initiative “HUMAN VOICES: building communities through the power of stories” a toolkit based on 6 stories, of 6 refugees and migrants living in Portugal and Serbia.

Isabel is co-founder and active team member of MEERU | Abrir Caminho, an NGO based in Porto, Portugal, which aims to promote communities through dialogue and proximity. Isabel is currently responsible for several projects and initiatives. 

Maja is part of the team of ADRA Serbia, based in Belgrade, Serbia an organization which delivers relief and development assistance to individuals and communities. Maja is experienced in working with young refugees, especially unaccompanied minors and currently legal consultant on a project "Strengthening young Roma Families".

Isabel and Maja each represent their organization at KAICIID's Network for Dialogue, where they crossed paths and came together to develop their joint initiative.

 

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Shireen Wahab

Shireen Wahab is Director of the Kurdistan Relief Association.  Shireen lead and implemented a project to enhance the role of Interreligious dialogue in responding to Covid-19 and promoting public health, an initiative which supported by and part of the KAICIID Dialogue-360 Project.  Over a period of six months, Shireen was active in 3 Iraq Governorates among various community members leading group sessions to promote social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. The activities included focus group discussion to empower peace-builders to engaged with Stakeholders and religions Men to prevent Hate Speech on regional and national level, youth visits to cultural regions to increase of interreligious education and common citizenship in interreligious dialogue initiatives, cleaning campaigns to increase community engagement and response the COVID-19 outbreak amongst vulnerable groups, and painting pictures on the prevention of hate speech. 

MODERATOR(S)

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Reverend Mike Waltner

Rev’d Mike Waltner is a specialist in interfaith relations, with over 15 years of experience in designing and implementing multi-faith dialogue and peacebuilding projects and initiatives. He has experience in religious outreach, dialogue training and facilitation,  alongside developing and coordinating global interfaith partnerships and networks. He has particular interest in the role of religion in diverse societies, geopolitics and development.  For the past seven years Mike has been serving as an international civil servant managing interreligious projects and programmes at the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID).  He is currently Senior Programme Manager of the Centre’s Asia Region programme.  Mike holds an BA in religious studies from Pennsylvania State University and an MDiv. from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York at Columbia University. He is an ordained Priest in the Church of England (Diocese of Europe).

Where online
Time Europe/Lisbon
Date
Speakers
Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović
Pastor Yohanna Buru
Ana Victoria Peláez Ponce
Wiwin Siti Aminah Rohmawati
Harry Myo Lin
Isabel Tootill and Maja Markovic
Shireen Wahab
Language English
Interpretation Arabic, Spanish
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