The Unitheum CC has published a very beautiful new organizational folder in English and German.
Have a look at it and see what the Unitheum CC is and does (click here).

A new project is underway to create a book of interfaith wisdom with texts from different faiths about topics such as love, the meaning of life, forgiveness etc. The book will be offered to hotels - this way hotel guests will find this interfaith book, next to the New Testament, in their bedside drawer. Members of other German CCs - including the DMLBonn CC and URI Germany CC - will also contribute to this enterprise.

Convictions in Dialogue CC (Belgium) and UNESCOCat CC (Catalonia/Spain)
publish interfaith calendars 2010

The Convictions in Dialogue CC in Septon/Belgium and the UNESCOCat CC in
Barcelona/Catalonia-Spain have published their interfaith calendars 2010.

Convictions in Dialogue:
The calendar features youth from different faith traditions on 12 double
pages, one for each month and lists religious and secular holidays.
Click here to see a sample page.
It can be obtained by email from contact[at]elkalima[dot]be or
martingurvich[at]panho[dot]net The cost is EUR 8,-.

UNESCOCat CC:
This year's topic is searching the Absolute. The calendar starts in
September 2009 and ends in December 2010.
Contact: Elisabeth Lheure: e.lheure[at]unescocat[dot]org.
 

Over 65 000 people, representing cultures from all over the world, met in Kaisaniemi Park and on the Railway Square in Helsinki, Finland, on May 23 and 24, 2009, for the World Village Festival. The festival offered world views and possibilities as well as music, circus, dance, theatre, art and activities.

The events presented new perspectives on tolerant multiculturalism, development cooperation, global issues and expanding one's possibilities for affecting everyday life.

The Forum of Religions in Helsinki CC, Helsingin Uskontojen Foorumi, organized a celebration of the Golden Rule with a Peace Pole on Mekong Stage at the Railway Square.

 

Nearly all the large world religions are represented at the Forum of Religions in Helsinki. During the performance, representatives of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Baha'i, Hinduism, the Unitarian Church, Christian Science, the Mother Amma movement, the Ananda Marga movement and the New Humanist movement carried flags decorated with their own religious and traditional symbols, and briefly recited the golden rule in its form taken from their respective religions and traditions.

The presentation was also a pre-parliament event for the Parliament of the World´s Religions, which will take place in Melbourne, Australia, from December 3 to 9, 2009.

The main organiser of the World Village Festival is the Service Centre for Development for Cooperation - KEPA. It is the umbrella organisation for over 270 development organisations or other NGOs working on issues concerning development and globalisation. KEPA itself is a politically and ideologically non-aligned organisation that operates with funding from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

Over 300 other partners were involved in the festival – some 200 NGOs as well as educational institutions, museums, public authorities and businesses.

 

On June 8, 2009, Minorities of Europe (MoE) was approved as a new Co-operation Circle (CC) of the United Religions Initiative (URI). Minorities of Europe is based in Coventry, United Kingdom. A warm welcome to MoE! 

MoE was established in 1995 as a result of the Council of Europe's campaign against racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia and intolerance across the continent of Europe. 

Among its aims and objectives are the following:

• To support and promote positive intercultural relations between minority and majority  communities.
• To overcome mutual prejudice among minorities and majorities and the perception of powerlessness that minority young people often feel. 
• To sustain the participation and integration of minority communities in Europe. 
• To initiate and promote tangible projects and examples of community development between people of different faiths, cultures and traditions.

 MoE has launched numerous projects for interfaith and intercultural dialogue and education. Some are listed below. 

Swapping Cultures

MoE's discussion based activity, "Swapping Cultures," is a tool to help break down barriers and forge links between people of diverse background and belief. It has been put into action in schools, colleges and communities across the UK and has reached many thousands of people. It has been acclaimed by the UK's Institute for Community Cohesion as a ground-breaking programme. 

Strasbourg 2005

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the European Council anti racism campaign "All Different, All Equal," MoE in partnership with Women for Minorities, organised a 10 day conference in Strasbourg for over  100 young people from all over Europe and the Caucasus, to reflect on the achievements of the Campaign and how its achievements could be taken forward into the future. 

Swapping Cultures	Strasbourg 2005

Iran Exchange

In 2004 MoE led a youth exchange between young people from Iran and the U.K. The programme saw each group of young people taking it in turns to host the other in their own country. Together the young people used art as a medium to explore their commonalities and differences.

At the 32nd Protestant Kirchentag in Bremen, Germany, Zamyat Gramann and Kaivan Plesken of the Unitheum CC also spent one day at the information desk of the Sufi Order International providing information on the Unitheum. This led to many profound, moving and inspiring talks with people who visited the information desk. The spiritual message of Hazrat Inayat Khan as such and the specific concern of the Unitheum were of great interest even to Protestants with religious zeal who were eager to convince others of their point of view. Nevertheless, some interlocutors tried to point out the exclusiveness of their own belief, sometimes behind the old fear of hell and damnation. 

On the other hand, a clergyman from Kenya, for example, who first erroneously thought we were representatives of a Protestant church, showed an open mind and open heart. Having overcome communication difficulties caused by lack of proficiency in English on both sides, we agreed that God is above all names and forms and the common background to all religions. 

We were delighted that Sidi Sabri W. Hoffmann, a member of the board of the German Muslim League Bonn (DMLBonn) and Chairman of the Christian-Islamic Society (CIG), which is the oldest and biggest German association for Christian-Muslim dialogue, visited our desk and offered to help us make contact with the Reisu-l-ulema of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dr. Mustafa efendi Cerić. 

Very informative, too, was the talk with a small delegation of Kurdish Yezidis. One of their pirs and his interpreter visited us to remind of the tradition we have in common and to express the wish for a closer dialogue. Yezidism is an approximately 4,000 year old monotheistic religion, which in Persia later assimilated the teachings of the great Sufis. Today there are approximately 800,000 Yezidis, who are strongly persecuted in their countries of origin. Pir Dima presented to us an illustrated book he wrote about his religion and its main temple in Lalish and asked for a book by Hazrat Inayat Khan in return. 

On another day we had the opportunity to attend some accompanying cultural events. Thousands of people listened to the famous musical message delivered by the clarinetist Giora Feidman to reconcile the Abrahamic religions with one another. And we also were among the listeners at an excellent overtone concert — unfortunately of a very small scope — with Reinhard Schimmelpfeng and Uli Beckerhoff (one of the most excellent German jazz musicians) and the actor Rainer Iwersen (Bremer Shakespeare Company) reading texts critical of religion by Nietzsche and others. Here ideals based on dogmatic lip service were shattered on the rock of truth, and a spirituality of the future bound up with Mother Earth was celebrated.
“Stop burying your heads in the sand of heaven!”

Zamyat Gramann and Kaivan Plesken