Author Archives: RFBF

Faith@Work

Faith and core beliefs are taboo discussion topics in many workplaces. But that is changing. A gathering wind of freedom is gaining strength. It’s accelerating in this time when employers are pressed – perhaps as never before – to find new ways to inspire and motivate their people to collaborate, create and execute business, often while working remotely.

During the shutdown, the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation has been hosting a series of calls with Fortune 500 companies in which they share how they’re becoming more faith-and-belief friendly. They are doing this in ways that not only allow each employee to be authentic to his/her own faith, but builds a workplace community where people’s various faiths and beliefs are welcome and viewed as a source of strength.

Previous calls featured insights from Intel, American Express, American Airlines, Salesforce, and DELL.

If you’re interested in joining in, drop us a note.

The Religious Freedom & Business Foundation has been in the news – see the stories:

The Hill (U.S.): Why religious freedom is special (by Emilie Kao)

The Wire (India): Why Social Harmony Is Important for a Healthy Economy: Frequent sectarian violence casts a pall over the Indian economy (by Tehmina Arora)

Article 18 (UK): Grand Prize winner in animation for the 2020 religious freedom and business Empower Women Media film competition feature by Article 18

Thousands have tuned in for the religious freedom film festival and awards since they were released one month ago.

Since July 10, the films have recoded 71,000 impressions with more than four thousand views.

To access to the full film festival, click here. Four films account for about half of all the views. They are:

New data show that 55% of U.S. adults, or 115 million women and men, regularly turn to prayer to help them cope with the coronavirus outbreak.

These Pew Research Center data point to the importance of including faith as part of resources for employees as they navigate work in the age of Covid-19.

Although not all Americans report that they turn to prayer in order to cope with the stresses posed by the pandemic, 115 million is a sizable number. These millions of religiously active Americans are also taking their spiritual resources into the workplace. 

Workplace religious inclusion is a growing trend in corporate America that is being embraced by some of the largest and most recognizable companies. From Google to Facebook to Walmart, companies from a range of industries are recognizing that faith-friendly environments mean better workplaces and better businesses.

Following the groundbreaking Faith@Work conference in February 2020, each month the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation hosts a “Faith & Belief Employee Resource Group (ERG) Community Call” where employees and executives come together to discuss latest trends in the corporate programs that foster religious inclusion.

Since April, representatives from companies including from Intel, American Express, American Airlines, Salesforce, and most recently DELL Technologies, have shared about their multi-faith programs aimed at not only encouraging members at work but also reaching out to the communities where they work.

Two trends are helping to accelerate this more welcoming attitude toward faith in the workplace. First, religion and belief are being recognized as key elements of a company’s overall diversity and inclusion initiatives, which makes sense since America is becoming more religiously diverse.

And second, there is a groundswell of interest from within companies. It’s a grassroots movement that is being embraced by corporate leadership because it is not only good for their faith-interested employees, but it adds to the bottom line through increased morale as well as greater resources to understand marketplaces that are also becoming more religiously diverse.

Click here to learn more about the ways the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation is working with companies to build more religiously inclusive workplaces.

by Brian J. Grim

If things were normal, this month would have seen the Olympics wrap up and the Paralympics kick off in Tokyo. Of course things aren’t normal. That has forced the postponement of many things, not just sports, but also events such as our biannual Global Business & Interfaith Peace Awards held in tandem with the Paralympic Games.

At the same time, the coronavirus shutdowns have opened opportunities for new voices to change the tone of our civil discourse at home and abroad.

Faith@Work

Faith and core beliefs are taboo discussion topics in many workplaces. But that is changing. A gathering wind of freedom is gaining strength. It’s accelerating in this time when employers are pressed – perhaps as never before – to find new ways to inspire and motivate their people to collaborate, create and execute business, often while working remotely.

During the shutdown the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation has been hosting a series of calls with Fortune 500 companies in which they share how they’re becoming more faith-and-belief friendly. They are doing this in ways that not only allow each employee to be authentic to his/her own faith, but builds a workplace community where people’s various faiths and beliefs are welcome and viewed as a source of strength.

Previous calls featured insights from Intel, American Express, American Airlines, and Salesforce. Today’s call features DELL.

At Dell Technologies, the company’s corporate vision aligns with and empowers the Interfaith ERG in their commitment to drive awareness, promote understanding, and foster camaraderie.

In today’s call, we’ll be hearing from Joe Pacheco, Marketing Director & Interfaith Business Innovation Co-Lead, and Steve Helms, Global Alliance Sales Manager & Interfaith Business Innovation Co-Lead, on how including faith is part of Dell Technologies’ overall diversity & inclusion commitment as carried out through Dell Technologies Corporate Resource Groups.

It is no coincidence that the speakers focus on business innovation as part of the interfaith initiative, as powerfully stated at our February 2020 Faith@Work Conference by DELL’s first entrepreneur-in-residence, Ingrid Vanderveldt, now CEO of Empower a Billion Women.

Speaking of Empowering Women

On August 1, people from around the world joined seven award-winning filmmakers at the 2020 Empower Women Media Film Festival and Awards cosponsored with the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation.

I couldn’t have be more thrilled with the opportunity to work with Shirin Taber and the daring and talented network of media advocates working with Empower Women Media. They are on the cutting edge of advocacy for both women’s empowerment and freedom of religion or belief – the two go hand-in-hand!

We gathered to honor women who artfully and compellingly explore through short films the impact of freedom of religion or belief in their workplaces and communities.

This tremendous film initiative is in support of Article 18 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his/her religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his/he religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

The work of these filmmakers couldn’t be more timely. Social science research – which I’ve been involved with – projects that our planet will have 2.3 billion more religiously affiliated people by 2050 compared with just 0.1 billion more religiously unaffiliated people. That’s a 23-to-1 ratio in favor of religious growth.

Research also shows that this religious growth can be good for the workplace and the bottom lines of businesses – as long as freedom of religion and belief is respected. In such countries, innovative strength is more than twice as high as in countries where governments and societies don’t respect freedom of religion or belief. So, freedom to believe – or not believe – is good for business.

Freedom matters.

But the data on religious freedom are very concerning. Annual studies find that restrictions on religion and belief are high in 40% of countries. But because some of these countries (like China) are very populous, some 5.9 billion people (or nearly 80% of the world’s population) live in countries with a high restrictions on religion and belief coming from two main sources: the actions and policies of governments, and the social hostilities involving religion coming from people and groups in societies.

Since 2009, the number of people living in countries with high religious restrictions and hostilities has increased from 4.8 to 5.9 billion people – that’s an increase of 1.1 billion more people living in countries where freedom of religion or belief is under duress.

Because the challenges are great, we need new tools to make the case for religious freedom. The films you’ll see today make the pragmatic case that religious freedom is good for societies, including good for the marketplace and workplace.

Finally – drum roll please – I’m pleased to announce that the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation has awarded each of our two 2020 Grand Prize winners – both of whom you’ll meet in a few minutes – a $5,000 cash prize and a TRIP to Tokyo to present their short films at the 2021 Global Business & Interfaith Peace Awards in tandem with Olympic and Paralympic Games – assuming they will be held next summer. Their films will also be screened at the Dare to Overcome Global Business & Peace Festival in support of the Paralympic Movement and people with disabilities.

Let me conclude with a short film produced by Sharon Angel, who will also be on hand in Tokyo to share the full-length version of the music video she has produced for Dare to Overcome.

All these business and media initiatives are new voices making societies more civil.

By Steve Hitz

Steve Hitz is a founding partner of Launching Leaders Worldwide. LLWW and the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation have engaged participants in 29 countries on 6 continents thru a faith-based personal leadership curriculum which empowers participants everywhere. 

When we at Launching Leaders Worldwide began our partnership with Brian Grim and Religious Freedom & Business Foundation in 2016, we gathered in Manchester, England, at the Catholic Chaplaincy with Father Tim Byron and team to conduct an interfaith leadership seminar. The breadth of this experience cannot be overstated. The group was made up of several young adults from various faiths. They facilitated the curriculum themselves, discussing and applying the leadership principles being taught to their own beliefs and faith traditions, while learning from others and their faith and beliefs.

The leadership principles woven within the fabric of faith erased any perceived boundaries as the young adults united in an exchange of ideas and beliefs.  One of the Christian participants, Hinna Parvez Malúch, had fled to England from Pakistan where she had suffered persecution because of her beliefs. So when Father Tim suggested concluding the course with a service project – painting a mosque that had been graffitied and defaced by religious bigots – it wasn’t an easy thing to do for Hinna who had herself been severely affected by the religious intolerance of Pakistani Muslims.

Hinna trusted that only good could come from an outreach such as this, though she was terrified. In the end, the entire experience was more than a leadership course wherein personal faith could be applied, it was the formation of a group who learned to appreciate others’ faith journeys without judgement and with gratitude, knowing that we can all co-exist in a joyful and peaceful way.

It is not too much to suggest that humanity operates from within the woeful limits to our human knowledge. In a world with every “fact” at our fingertips, we still live much of our lives in ignorance. In his quest for understanding, Seventeenth-century scientist and theologian Blaise Pascal surmised:

“This is what I see and what troubles me.  I look on all sides, and I see only darkness everywhere.  Nature presents to me nothing which is not a matter of doubt and concern.  If I saw nothing there that revealed a Divinity, I would come to a negative conclusion; if I saw everywhere the signs of a Creator, I would remain peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny and too little to be sure, I am in a state to be pitied….”

In everyone’s search to discover their truth, the ability to have liberating and open discussions without conflict that creates human suffering in the process is by all practicality, religious freedom. Can there be anything so valuable to a person’s quest for happiness? Perhaps we are all to be “pitied,” not knowing all the answers to life’s important questions. But that is the foundation of faith—a yearning toward something more, especially given our limited understanding.

Dr. Paul Brand, author of Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, gave his life to making a better world for those afflicted with leprosy. He had a leprosy hospital in Vellore, India, to which he would invite guest speakers from time to time. He recalled a “strange-looking” Frenchman Abbe Pierre, arriving with his simple monk’s habit and a blanket over his shoulder and carrying a carpet bag with everything he possessed. He told his story of being assigned as a Catholic friar to work among beggars in Paris after World War II. Abbe tried to interest the community in the beggar’s plight—to no avail.

He decided that if he could instill the act of service and personal purpose in the beggars, they might have a chance. He organized them into a business collecting bottles and rags from big hotels and businesses. An organization called Emmaus was founded which branched into many countries. The beggars had found purpose in personal responsibility and service. His challenge then was to continue to find service opportunities for the participants so the spiritual impact of their mission would not be lost.

Dr. Brand invited Abbe Pierre to share his story with the students at Vellore, who were typically light-hearted and sometimes ornery, and did not suffer a guest speaker who was boring. They allowed three minutes before stomping their feet until the speaker sat down. It sounds rude, but that was their custom.

Abbe Pierre spoke French, which was not understood by the students. He spoke deliberately and gave a detailed account of his mission and purpose. Dr. Brand was afraid that the students would not suffer such an oration and that this humble man might be shouted off the stage. Dr. Brand was translating as fast as he could. “You don’t need language to express love, only to express hate. The language of love is what you do,” said Pierre. The students looked at Pierre. With piercing eyes, the students were mesmerized by his message. Three minutes passed and turned to twenty. Pierre sat down, and immediately the students burst into a boisterous standing ovation. Dr. Brand was mystified and asked the students how they understood? Their reply – “We did not need a language. We felt the presence of God and the presence of love.”

This is the language that crossed interfaith lines for Hinna as she painted a mosque. This is the language that permitted four very different faith traditions in Manchester to work together, sharing openly how the leadership principles applied to their own faith, and emerged with a love and understanding for each other. This is the language that allows civil debate. This is the language looks upon another’s seeking without pity, but rather, celebration. This is the fabric of faith that is the foundation of religious freedom—which when implemented, bridges gaps of misunderstanding and allows pure dialogue to rise above the cancel culture of judgement and coercion.

Weave into this discussion Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

Now we have the foundations of a dialogue that can change the world for the better. I look forward to building upon these concepts in the coming months as we strive to create meaningful purpose in each of our lives and an atmosphere in the world that allows us all to breathe a little more freely.

Related Video

Indian filmmaker Sharon Angel was recognized for her entry in the 2020 Religious Freedom & Business Film Festival (see below).

About Sharon Angel

Sharon Angel is a dynamic, young leader and a voice for this generation. Sharon’s passion lies in bridging societal divides between people of different status, faith, caste, race, age and gender. Her goal is to give voice to those who are destitute and faced by oppression, and help facilitate their journey toward rehabilitation, employment and leadership through her work in media and justice. Sharon is the Trustee of SEESHA (www.seesha.org), a non-governmental organization in India that helps the underprivileged communities in areas of health, education, sanitation and environment.

Growing up immersed in media, Sharon has studied and worked with media organizations around the world to effectively take her message to a global audience. As a Bachelor in Broadcast Communication, graduate of MFA in Cinema-Television, and producer of several programs at her job with a broadcast network, she empowers other women media advocates with technical skills to produce their own show. Sharon speaks around the world, teaches and trains leaders on how they can effectively use video and social media to deliver their message on a visual platform.

The heart of Sharon’s passion lies with her video project, “Random Thoughts”. The YouTube series started in 2013 and shares the truly random thoughts that she has on things she encounters in her life, travels, work and leisure. Today, she has a variety of videos on difficult subjects starting from domestic violence, religious freedom, peaceful relationships, child labor, disaster relief, mental health to everyday topics like having a bad day, the meaning of love and spending. Her channel encourages people to open up and share their experiences on matters that tear people apart, so that Sharon can do her part in inspiring a new perspective for peace, bridging the gap and stimulating reconciliation. Subscribers also get a sneak peek into her life through her vlogs, as she showcases some of her favorite things to do while she travels and reminisces about growing up in India.

Sharon is now an entrepreneur and runs her own video production company, helping organizations and leaders produce video and social media content around the world.

In a recent interview, Sharon talked about her company, A North Production: “As a company, we help corporate leaders and businesses establish an online presence. Most people are intimidated of social media and their company’s online competition. We help individuals and brands bring their vision to action with ease, and reach their intended audience. We are known for video production, social media strategy, content creation, marketing and branding.”

“Our business focuses not only on taking away the intimidation that media and the internet world brings to clients but has a message behind every story, ultimately  empowering women on the other side of the world. We are here to serve the intellectual and the outcast, hoping to bridge the gap between two widely different groups of people.”

• ⇒ Download DELL Technologies Interfaith ERG Presentation 
•           *         *         *          *
• ⇒ What: Community Call for Faith and Belief Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
• ⇒ Featuring: DELL — At Dell Technologies, the Interfaith ERG represents many faiths as one family. Leaders shared how Dell’s corporate vision aligns with and empowers the interfaith ERG in their commitment to drive awareness, promote understanding, and foster camaraderie. Speakers included: Joe Pacheco, Marketing Director & Interfaith Business Innovation Co-Lead; and Steve Helms, Global Alliance Sales Manager & Interfaith Business Innovation Co-Lead. Also see Dell Technologies 2020 Diversity & Inclusion Report and Dell Technologies Corporate Resource Groups.
• ⇒ When: Tuesday, August 4, 2020
• ⇒ Time: 12 noon EDT; 11:00am CDT; 09:00am PDT
• ⇒ Host: Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF)
• ⇒ Moderator: Kent Johnson
• ⇒ Registration Required (closed)
• ⇒ Join Faith & Belief ERG LinkedIn Group: Join Now
• ⇒ Questions? Email RFBF

Note: Presentation was not recorded and ws off the record (Chatham House Rule). For security, registration and password were required.

Faith-Oriented Employee Resource Groups are becoming a regular part of corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. This was the fifth in a series of monthly interfaith ERG community calls. Previous calls featured insights from Intel, American Express, American Airlines, and Salesforce. The next call will be Tuesday, September 1, with PayPal’s Interfaith Employee Resource Group “Believe” sharing about their exciting new work.

Please join our LINKEDIN GROUP to share your thoughts and to stay in touch.

Dell took one of the top spots among Fortune 100 companies on the Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) Index in 2020. Learn more.

Film competition highlights religious freedom worldwide

By CEN on 19/07/2020

A NEW film featuring Mariya Dostzadah Goodbrake has won top prize in a competition designed to highlight religious freedom. …

Meanwhile, Maral Karee (Iran and Canada) claimed grand prize for the best animated short film. …

(read full story featured online or in the main Sunday print edition).

King Husein, CEO of America’s largest metal construction company, signs Corporate Pledge on freedom of religion or belief

In 2016, the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation issued the Corporate Pledge on Freedom of religion or Belief (the Pledge) and invited companies to sign on. The Pledge is predicated on protecting religious pluralism and freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), as it is articulated in Article 18 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the Declaration):

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Drawing on the Declaration, the Pledge outlines aspirational goals for corporate support of freedom of religion or belief within the workforce and in the nations and communities in which the signatories conduct business. Scores of companies have signed the Pledge, and the number of signatories continues to grow.

Biography

King Husein was born in Bombay, India. He received a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Bombay. He also received his master’s degree in Civil and Structural Engineering from Brigham Young University. After completing his education, he was hired by Priggen Steel Buildings, a regional steel building manufacturer which was later acquired by Varco-Pruden Buildings which is affiliated with Butler Steel Buildings. From there he moved to California, where he eventually established Span Construction and Engineering, which he now heads as the Chairman and CEO.

He has built the company into what is now the country’s largest steel building engineering and construction company, which is operating on four continents. The company specializes in the engineering and construction of large steel buildings. It is also the exclusive builder for Costco Wholesale worldwide. In addition to his business ventures, King has been a prominent supporter of religious freedom initiatives worldwide, including in India.

Commitment to Religious Freedom

In part because of his early life in India, coupled with positive experiences in later life in the United States, King has been acutely aware of the importance of freedom of religion or belief for his own faith, for protection of the rights of others, and as a vital factor in the building of vibrant, stable societies.  With that in mind, his major objective has been to find ways to reach key opinion leaders in countries around the world—government officials, religious leaders, academics, judges, and other policy makers.

He has had a strong interest in his native India, but his efforts have reached much further.  He has found practical ways (and provided vital funding) to bring together key people who shape religion policy around the world.  Among other things, these initiatives help build reciprocal moral support among FoRB workers who may feel isolated in their own countries.  They also provide fertile settings for generating creative ideas for better implementation of FoRB ideals.  He has found remarkably effective ways to build networks that contribute to deepened understanding, strengthened networks, and positive law reform and policy initiatives.

King Husein participated in September 2019 in the High Level Business Roundtable Discussion on International Religious Freedom in New York City with the U.S. Ambassador at large for International Religious Freedom. He also spoke on the “Role of Religion in Business” at the Horasis Global Conference in Cascais, Portugal in 2018.