Celebrating Hope and Valuing Grassroot Voices – Energizing the Interfaith Network
United Religions Initiative (URI) is a global grassroots interfaith network that cultivates peace and justice by engaging people to bridge religious and cultural differences and work together for the good of their communities and the world. The purpose of the United Religions Initiative is to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings.
URI North Zone India and Afghanistan held its Regional Assembly on 29th and 30th July in New Delhi. With the theme of the assembly as Celebrating Hope and Valuing grassroot voices – energizing the interfaith network, it brought together community-service-providers whose work is mostly silent, and away from the radar and glare of the media. Seeking to create an alternate and inclusive narrative which values quality over quantity, the assembly celebrated the virtues of a bottom-up approach to peacebuilding.
The inauguration ceremony of the assembly was held at Bhai Vir Singh Sahitya Sadan in New Delhi which was graced by Dr.Mohinder Singh, Mr. Sushil Salwan, Mr.Biswadev Chakraborty, Dr. Rubina Shabnam,and Ms. Jayapriya Reinhalter – all eminent figures in the field of inter-faith harmony who delivered messages of inter-faith learning. This was followed by a session which acknowledged the significance of the diverse work that each of the individuals and organizations present at the assembly are engaged in to create a dynamic process of building bridges across communities. This interactive session which included an intergenerational dialogue regarding the praxis of social work and peacebulding was also attended by students of the social work department of Amity University
The second day of the assembly focused more on experiential learning where the participants visited Gobind Sadan in Mehrauli, New Delhi to witness the virtues of celebrating different faith traditions in all its glory. Gobind Sadan is an interfaith, farm-based spiritual community, which believes in and teaches the universal messages of all prophets through love, faith, meditation and service, opening its doors to people across all religions and communities. The visit to the place was facilitated by Mary Pat Fischer, celebrated author and philosopher who writes on interfaith spirituality.
The concluding ceremony took place in collaboration with U-Day to bring more power to the message of peace. The U-Day movement promotes intercultural and interfaith harmony through global spiritual music celebrating human unity across all cultures, creeds, colours and countries. The concluding ceremony deftly facilitated by Ms. Lakshmi Bhatia brought together social-workers, musicians, artists, spiritual visionaries and peace activists to herald a culture of interfaith harmony and peace through the powers of both performing arts and grassroots work. The performances by Megha Nayar and dancers of the Nritya Shastra Academy, and, bhajan and sufi renditions by Sai Ganesh Nagpal and his team not only enlivened the evening but also drove home the message of solidarity.
