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Success in India: Human Rights & Business Skills Pilot

21 Feb, 2025

By Brian Grim

This week, I had the tremendous opportunity to observe four of the 10 schools in India that participated in our “Human Rights & Business Skills” secondary school curriculum pilot. We supplemented the curriculum, which is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Indian Constitution, with business skills that reinforce and apply the human rights.

Roundtable

MIT World Peace University School of Education professors and student teachers kicked off the week with a roundtable demonstrating how they adapted the curriculum to the Indian context and piloted the curriculum (see the picture above). The professors include the department head Dr Shalini Tonpe, Asst Prof Rahul Landge and Asst Prof Priya Kale.

The Roundtable conference began with Asst Prof Rahul Landge, in the picture below, reading a comprehensive report on the implementation of human rights curriculum, which was piloted across different schools of Pune city. The report provided valuable insights into curriculum’s execution, identified opportunities for growth, highlighted the challenges encountered, and included series of accountable recommendations for enhancing future efforts. This review played a crucial role in assessing the curriculum impact its adaptability within diverse educational settings.

The human rights were very well received, and each of the 10 school principals were especially attracted to the practical business skills tied to higher values. Asst Prof Priya Kale, in the photo below, shows that while none of the schools has a business skills curriculum and only four are aware of such a curriculum, they all would like to implement such a curriculum in their schools.

The team’s student teachers demonstrated as part of the roundtable four of the 10 human rights lessons that they piloted in the fall: Freedom of Religion, Protection from Child Labor, Right to Marriage and Family, and Freedom from Bullying.

In the Schools

The class teacher at Anjuman Islam Peer Mohamed High School – Pune, an all-girls Muslim school (pictured below, bottom right), gave a ringing endorsement after the demonstration lesson, Freedom from Bullying. She and the chief school administrator invited us to implement the curriculum on an ongoing basis.

At a Punbe school for underprivileged students, the Bharati Vidyapeet School, the pilot was on the fundamental human right to Marriage and Family. The class was executed effectively, with a variety of engaging activities designed to raise awareness about this right. Students actively participated in role-playing exercises, group discussions and case studies, which helped them explore marriage laws, family dynamics and personal freedoms.

A highlight was the performance of one of the 10 original songs written by one of the Hindu student teachers. He partnered with a Christian student teacher (both pictured below) to write the songs to go with each of the 10 lessons.

At a prep school attached to MIT WPU, the pilot class on Religious Freedom was animated through “gamification” – using games and competition to motivate learning. In one game, teams competed to see who could find the most similarities between India’s multiple religions. My minor but really fun part was to come on stage and hand out the awards.

The final demonstration pilot was at a tutoring center giving evening classes for underprivileged students. The center is an act of love by a husband and wife team who offer daily coaching classes on English and math as well as other subjects as needed. The lesson was one that hits close to home for these students: Freedom from Bullying.

The Impact and Next Steps

Comments from students ranged from, “I didn’t realize we had universal rights at birth,” to coming up for strategies on how to combat discrimination.

We are working towards sustainability and expansion of the initiative across India and worldwide through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding. Indian companies must spend a minimum of 2% of their average net profit over the preceding three years on CSR activities.

In recognition of the leadership making this pilot possible, we will be conferring the Global Business & Interfaith Peace Gold Medal to MIT-WPU’s Executive President, Dr. Rahul V. Karad (pictured below, center). The award will take place during our upcoming Dare to Overcome conference in Washington DC on May 20-22, 2025.

I made the announcement of this prestigious award during MIT-WPU’s Executive Board meeting. Also present was the founder, Revered Prof (Dr.) Vishwanath D. Karad. He established the university’s guiding principle based on the teachings of India’s Noble Son Swami Vivekananda, “The union of science and spirituality will bring peace and harmony to mankind.”

The Moth and the Flame: Understanding Politics and Religion

11 Feb, 2025

By Brian Grim

I spent most of last week in meetings in Washington DC. I was struck by how closely politics and religion intermingle. U.S. Vice President JD Vance spoke at the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit. President Donald Trump addressed the National Prayer Breakfast.

But the relationship between politics and religion is often uneasy. This uneasiness was on display a week after New York Catholic archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan gave a warmly received invocation at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Fellow Catholic, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, leveled criticism against the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which ‘hurt’ the cardinal.

You can read my reflection on this uneasy relationship in my latest Patheos blog, The Moth and the Flame: When Politics and Religion Collide. The title is a nod the late sociologist of religion N.J. Demerath III.

Letter to the new U.S. administration

31 Jan, 2025

By Brian Grim

Yesterday, I sent U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio a letter. In it I draw attention to the latest Pew Research data showing that the state of religious freedom worldwide is at its lowest point in 16 years and that current strategies for combatting the deterioration of this universal human right are insufficient. The solution is to adopt a new strategy that harnesses a powerful and untapped force with a vested interest in building religious freedom worldwide. That’s business.

The good news is that top global businesses are already engaged in building religious freedom for millions of working people by making their workplaces faith friendly at home and abroad. Accordingly, I offered five recommendations including that the next Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom be a senior business leader with a passion for international religious freedom:

You can read my full letter here.

Harassment of religious groups by governments at a 16-year high

28 Jan, 2025

The latest data (2022) show that governments harassed religious groups in 186 countries and territories, up from 118 in 2007, the year I led the first Pew Research Center annual study of restrictions on religious freedom. Compounding the problem is that when harassment by social actors is included, religious groups in 192 out of the world’s 198 countries and territories (97%) experienced such harassment, which is a new peak level. (This also includes harassment of non-religious people by religious groups.)

Washington DC Faith@Work Conference 2025

24 Jan, 2025

Dare to Overcome (DTO) is the premier annual gathering for Fortune 500 company employee resource groups (ERGs), corporate chaplains, and other faith-and-belief workplace initiatives to share best practices and celebrate achievements.

Join us for essential conversations and dynamic presentations on issues companies, leaders and employees are facing in an ever-changing socio-economic environment at home and abroad.

This year’s theme is “United Towards Hope.”

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