Interfaith Youth in Action, Pakistan

an article by Shahid Ghouri, Director, Interfaith Youth in Action / World Faith Pakistan

Video: Interfaith Youth in Action

Greetings from Lahore, Pakistan!! Interfaith Youth in Action (IYA), a network of diverse faith youth and a project of Youth Development Foundation (YDF) with Separate leadership and local chapter of World Faith USA, is a non-profit, non-government and secular organization led by young people from diverse faiths and backgrounds in Pakistan. IYA serves as a network of diverse youth to promote pluralism and mutual respect for religious diversity and bridge building among youth of different faiths through interfaith dialogues, friendly relationship and human based coexistent.

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Our purpose is to provide opportunity and safe spaces for the youth of each faith to come together to build understanding, reduce misconceptions and develop healthy relationship through social activities, exposures visits, interfaith celebrations, sports gathering and community service activities to promote interfaith dialogues and relationship building by interaction and practical action for peace and harmony in Pakistani context.

We have been implementing our various peace advocacy projects mainly in post conflicts areas like Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi; Solidarity has been one of the focal themes in promoting and advocating peace as a way of life.

I am very impressed by CPNN initiatives and want to contribute in your peace building mission which will be mutually benefits for both networks. Please let me know how we can contribute and participate in CPNN mission?

DISCUSSION

Question(s) related to this article:

Is there a renewed movement of solidarity by the new generation?,

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LATEST READER COMMENT:

Inspiration.  If I had to define my experience during the week spent in Budapest with 31 young people from all over Europe this would be the word I use.  Because inspiration is what we need to keep going, inspiration brings joy and a feeling of being able to do whatever we want.  And why not?  Human beings are able to do whatever they want, you just have to look around to see. So why not work towards a culture of peace?!

Culture of peace was one of the themes we discussed in Budapest, and our main conclusions were that a culture of peace is a process that leads to a better world where human beings can live free in peace and dignity.

To know what is a culture of peace in a more concrete way, just look around you and think of the things you would like to improve in your life and in your quarter, community, country.  Each place and community looks forward to the ‘own’ culture of peace, because to engage the community in this process is fundamental.  And, furthermore, it is important to keep in mind some basic aspects when creating a culture of peace: equality in human rights, nonviolence, respects and care for the environment (because we don’t live in a vacuum), share of information and knowledge, gender equality and freedom from discrimination, sustainable development, peace education, inner peace...

It is hard to me to imagine a human being who would answer ‘no’ to the question ‘would you like to live in a culture of peace?’.  What do you think?  This is the reason why few years ago the petition for the ‘Manifesto 2000 for a culture of peace and human rights’  gathered 1% of the world population signatures!!  Wow!  And maybe the reason why it was totally ignored by the world “leaders” is because it was starting to wake up people minds and hearts.

Maybe some of you may laugh while reading this article, because it seems that there is a general tendency to irony and cynicism in our modern society towards peace and human rights matters. . ...more.

This report was posted on September 8, 2012.

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