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Project Overview
The exchange program Faith and Community: A Dialogue, funded by the US Department of State and administered by IREX, provides opportunities for youth leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia, and the United States to better understand each other. Partnered with the International Multi-religious and Intercultural Center(IMIC) in Sarajevo and the International Visitors Council (IVC) of Philadelphia, IREX will strengthen the role that clerics, educators, and community leaders—heavily influential forces among youth groups--play in creating religious tolerance and understanding.
Key Objectives
- Increase dialogue between individuals and communities to foster mutual understanding and enduring interfaith relationships
- Strengthen the capacity of community leaders to diminish and prevent religious tension towards and among Muslim communities, especially among youth
- Equip participants with new models, skills, and methods for communication across religious boundaries
Project Activities
This program will engage a total of 24 leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia in a range of workshops, exchange visits, online activities and follow-on programs.
- Exchange visits to Washington, DC and Philadelphia are going to be one of the main elements of the program, and will allow the participants to learn from and collaborate with American individuals and institutions committed to interfaith solidarity and religious pluralism.
- Participants and American hosts will be given an opportunity to broaden their understanding of faith in various community contexts, and then to incorporate it into their daily interactions and activities. IREX will assist participants to generate action plans, enabling them to launch innovative activities and programs in their home communities to increase interfaith dialogue and trust. IREX will offer small grants to partially fund these activities.
- A small group of US community leaders and scholars will visit program participants in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia to learn about their communities and assist with ongoing projects.
- Throughout the duration of the program, all participants will form an online community that will allow them to exchange ideas, to plan projects together and to stay connected even after the program’s completion.
This project is now closed
