Building Interfaith Peace Virtually: A Lesson from Youth

Representing the Religions for Peace Youth Media Team, I joined a webinar that took place on 1 December 2020, highlighting global interfaith efforts by youth. The webinar was co-hosted by World Council of Churches (WCC), The Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers. It showcased interfaith work by youth, highlighting their challenges and inspiring other youth to take action.

“Youth as Agents of Change, Promoting Interfaith Solidarity during the COVID-19 Pandemic” showcased the work of three young leaders from different faith traditions. I represented the Religions for Peace Youth Media Team as a Hindu woman from South Africa. I was joined by Mr. Fernando Sihotang, a Christian from Indonesia of LWF’s National Committee, and Ms. Kosar Mahmoodi, a Muslim from Finland of the Muslim Youth Forum. The webinar was joined by over 120 people from 29 different countries, including youth of various faiths, particularly Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians. The webinar showcased the different ways youth are leading multi-religiously during the pandemic to encourage others to remain strong in their efforts towards peacebuilding and interfaith solidarity.

Being a participant in this webinar, I found it inspirational to share the platform with other individuals who have the same passion and ideals and are striving to be examples of the change they wish to see in the world. It also provided an opportunity for me to reflect on my interfaith work and to recommit to achievable goals and strategies. I discovered I have been involved in over 45 zoom webinars or meetings with Religions for Peace International since April, when the lockdown in South Africa began.

Covid-19 has pushed us to communicate with each other more on social media, on a global level across borders, across time and distance, and across nationality and identity. It has provided an opportunity to build relationships and partnerships with an online community to make greater strides in our interfaith work and to reflect on a post-covid world.

With my co-speakers, I urged people of faith to be more active in sharing stories of solidarity and cooperation to counter hate speech and negative narratives around religious divisions and conflict.

This webinar allowed me to understand why it is so important for more youth to become agents of change and why it is imperative to believe in our work, to see that the small steps to change are just as important as the big ones. We must be examples for other youth to want to get involved in interfaith work to build a different world – one of peace for current and future generations.

Covid has shown us how fragile life is and why there is a need for more youth to be active to change narratives of hate and violence. We do not, and should not, have blueprints. Our failures, challenges, and learning curves are just as important as our successes.

People of faith are people of divine love, because all their actions are centred on the divine and they come from a place of love. We want to change this world and contribute positively in service to humanity.

Even though the second wave of Covid is currently hitting us worldwide, let us stay positive that 2021 will bring more opportunities to promote interfaith solidarity to prevent a violent history from repeating itself.

You can watch the full webinar here.