Accelerate Peace: Interfaith Action in Global Peacebuilding
- – June 26-27, 2019
- – Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus
- – Registration closed (sold out)
URI (The United Religions Initiative) will be hosting a two-day international conference on interfaith strategies for global peacebuilding at the Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus.
General James N. Mattis, Former United States Secretary of Defense, will participate in the keynote conversation, A Bishop and a General Talk about Peace, with the Right Rev. William E. Swing, Former Episcopal Bishop of California, President and Founding Trustee of United Religions Initiative.
Brian Grim, president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF), will speak as part of a high level panel on Building Cultures of Peace, Justice and Healing for the Earth and All Living Beings: Global Organizations and Grassroots Partnerships.
RFBF, together with with Launching Leaders Worldwide, has an ongoing partnership with URI. URI and RFBF initiated their combined efforts by rolling out Empowerment Plus in conjunction with Launching Leaders in URI’s East Africa Region under the leadership of URI’s Mussie Hailu. Empowerment Plus is an interfaith action program teaching young adults how to apply spiritual principles in their personal and professional lives, helping them develop a faith-centered framework with a focus on giving back.
Participants in the panel include:
- ∎ Moderator: Suzanne Eloise Siskel, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of the Asia Foundation, and URI President’s Council Member
- Panelists:
- ∎ Kate Cumbo, PhD, Executive Director of the PeaceJam Foundation
- ∎ Rabbi Serena Eisenberg, Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee Northern California
- ∎ Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi, Executive Director of the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers
- ∎ Dr. Brian J. Grim, President of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation Reverend
- ∎ Susan O. Hayward, Senior Advisor for Religion and Inclusive Societies at the US Institute of Peace
- ∎ Aqeela Jogee, Vice-President of Programs at Give2Asia
- ∎ Ulrich Nitschke, Head of the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) Secretariat
In a world of rising violence fueled by tensions between peoples of different beliefs, interfaith peacebuilders work together daily in countries around the world to resolve conflicts and create the conditions essential for sustainable peace by bridging religious, cultural and political differences for the good of their communities and the world.
Accelerating Peace: Interfaith Action and Global Peacebuilding will bring together grassroots interfaith peacebuilders, policy experts, and religious leaders, as well as representatives from the United Nations and international and interfaith organizations to explore issues of promoting interfaith cooperation to end religiously motivated violence and build cultures of peace, justice and healing in communities and countries around the world.
Participants will develop a deeper understanding of interfaith efforts towards global peacebuilding and consider targeted action steps to be undertaken locally and globally.
“Interfaith efforts like the United Religions Initiative are the kind of positive, non-military approach to dealing with the rising violence of religious extremism that we must support.”
- — The Hon. George Shultz testifying at a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on global threats and national security strategy