”Humanity is like a tree. The branches are vast and diverse, but the roots are the same.”
– Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili
The Commonwealth Faith Festival, launched by the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC and Professor Sir Nasser David Khalili, Chairman of the Khalili Foundation, aims to foster collaboration and understanding among youth, peacebuilding, faith, and community groups across the Commonwealth. This initiative, part of a collaborative effort between the Khalili Foundation and the Commonwealth Secretariat, seeks to amplify peace-building projects by creating a robust network of groups and facilitating productive dialogues throughout 2024. By emphasising the power of faith in promoting Commonwealth values and unity, the festival endeavours to address societal issues through youth-driven initiatives and partnerships.
Faith in the Commonwealth is a joint initiative between the Commonwealth and the Khalili Foundation to deliver Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and religious literacy in an interactive, practical and contemporary way. It builds on the Commonwealth’s investments in youth development and entrepreneurship, and in developing young people’s skills to build peace and prevent and counter violent extremism.
Professor Sir Nasser D. Khalili with Baroness Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, promoting Faith in the Commonwealth at Lords Cricket Ground.
Global Citizenship Education builds understanding, knowledge and skills to help people build a just, inclusive, sustainable and peaceful society.
The initiative has two streams: a GCED toolkit for university education, delivered in partnership with Commonwealth universities; and Youth Training of Trainer workshops, where young leaders learn practical facilitation skills to lead interfaith and intercultural dialogue and social action projects in their communities.
These workshops equip young leaders with the knowledge, capacity and tools to train and engage peers and community leaders around global citizenship thinking, and to facilitate intercultural/interfaith under- standing, peacebuilding and social cohesion.
Each workshop creates 26 youth trainers with the resources to deliver training workshops. Participants build confidence in their abilities and gain practical experience in facilitating training, methods and tools. Young people leave the workshops with the knowledge, skills and confidence to act as a catalyst of youth-led action. So far, we have seen over 100 social action activities emerging from the workshops, covering social cohesion, peace-building, education, gender equity, human rights and inter-faith dialogue.
Faith in the Commonwealth in:
Within its first year (2017-2018), the initiative has showcased the extraordinary potential of young people and educators across the Commonwealth. During this year, Faith in the Commonwealth partnered with four Commonwealth universities to deliver the GCED toolkit and trained 80 young people through Training of Trainer workshops in Bangladesh, Kenya and Trinidad and Tobago.
The GCED toolkit for undergraduate students is now being piloted in three universities in the 2018/19 academic year. The toolkit comprises an Educator Guide and Student Reader, and focuses on eight global issues (climate, education, gender equality, the global economy, health, migration, peace and security, and the technological revolution), in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. Delivered face to face during the pilot, we are planning for online delivery in 2018/19 so that it is available to as many Commonwealth universities as possible.
Over 80 young people representing ve Commonwealth nations have attended Youth Training of Trainers workshops. Participants design a social action project for their community using the tools and techniques taught in the workshop. Some of these projects include:
Sir David with Baroness Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, launching the Peace at the Crease cricket initiative, which seeks to use sport to foster community cohesion across the Commonwealth. The matches – played at Lords and Gymkhana – were between a touring Vatican XI and a Commonwealth interfaith XI.
As the founding partner of this important initiative, the Khalili Foundation has provided (and is continuing to provide) support in the following ways:
