Panel: INTERFAITH DIALOGUE AND TRANSFORMATION



63.1 - SHAPING GLOBAL CITIZENS THROUGH INTERRELIGIOUS COLLABORATION: THE INTERFAITH COALITION CONFERENCE FOR GLOBAL CITIZENS

AUTHORS:
Lefebure L. (Georgetown University ~ Washington, DC ~ United States of America)
Text:
This presentation will discuss the initiatives of Won Buddhists from South Korea who founded the Interfaith Coalition Conference for Global Citizens as a creative response to the crisis of the Covid pandemic. In 2000 we met online to discuss the future of religion after Covid and launched a movement to develop a sense of global citizenship in diverse contexts. After meeting again online in 2001 about 2002, we met in person in Seoul in August 2023, where The Honourable Ban Ki-moon, former secretary general of the United Nations, delivered the keynote address. The presentation will conclude by discussing the ICCGC's collaboration with the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CoNGO) in co-hosting an international interreligious conference on "Global Action on Peace, Sustainability, and Prosperity" at the Church Center of the United Nations in August 2024. The goal of the conference was "to pursue peace, human security, dignity, and planetary sustainability" through fostering collaboration and solidarity among religious communities in diverse contexts around the world; at the conclusion we issued a consensus declaration: "A Call to Global Community and Action for a Just, Peaceable, Inclusive, and Sustainable World."