#TowardsUnitedHumanValues: Conference reflection

Written by Jenny Erfina Saragih, UNOY Member,  Young Interfaith Peacemaker Community

During the meetings I had the opportunity to meet new actors who are passionate and committed to peace. We talked and shared each other’s concerns, strategies, and challenges on different social issues. Everyone worked on different topics such as interfaith-based peace, gender equality, ecology, and well-being but we were all concerned with peace.

I am so grateful to have had the chance to join the meeting of the United Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers (UNRTP) 2019 as a representative of UNOY and I would like to share some reflections on the event.

It was a really awesome experience to have the opportunity to engage with new important people and groups, all passionate about peace in different parts of the world. The topics we discussed gave me new perspectives and understandings and reflections towards peace and how to maintain it.

There were not only youth-led organisations, but there were other young at heart people, such as Karima K. Stauch from the United Religious Initiative (URI) from Germany. With her I had the chance to talk about the youth involvement in her region, their specific concerns and the support of the government for their efforts. Talking to her I realised that the kind of challenges are similar to ours and it motivated me to keep on going.

I also met Loreta Castro who works in the Mirriam Center for Peace Education in the Philippines. We shared a lot of similarities about using peace values to educate others on peace.During the meeting, I shared YIPC’s modules on interfaith dialogue such as ‘Scriptural Reasoning’ that we adopted from the Cambridge Interfaith Program, which inspired her to bring it to her organisation. We know that the Philippines and Indonesia have similar religious issues and that the relationship between Muslims and Christians faces many challenges. Having a religious-based peace education and interfaith dialogue program is a more effective approach to build, reconcile, and maintain peace among the society in these both countries. We both were happy to agree on this.

I met many other very insightful peace groups and hopefully we will keep in touch. I hope that the connection with the United Network of Religious and Traditional Peacemakers will offer more impactful collaboration, not only for the groups that part of this networking, but also to society and peace.

Thank you so much UNOY and Mridul, as our Asian Coordinator, for this precious opportunity. 

Peace be upon us!