Zeenat Rahman: “Tolerance in a Multi-Cultural, Multi-Religious, and Democratic Society”
In August 2009, CSRC’s monthly discussion had Ms. Zeenat Rahman as guest speaker. Ms Zeenat Rahman is the senior program coordinator for public affair at the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) which is based in the United Stated of America. In this position she overseas policy initiatives and international programs, as well as strategic media outreach for this organization. She frequently travels abroad, and her visit to CSRC and other centers in Indonesia is part of this. In CSRC’s monthly discussion Ms. Zeenat spoke many about the importance of interfaith youth work in promoting civic engagement and healthy integration amongst youth. According to Ms. Zeenat interfaith youth work can be realized when mutual respect and pluralism among young people has been built well. Therefore, Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) has been working to shape this goal by empowering young people to work together to serve others.
Furthermore, Ms Zeenat said that in building a new relationship among young people, the interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) builds relationships on the values that they share, such as hospitality and caring for the Earth, instead of focusing a dialogue on political or theological differences, and how they can live out those values together to contribute to the betterment of their community. In creating these relationships across the world, the Interfaith Youth Core is inspiring, networking, and resourcing young people, who are the leaders of this movement. IFYC provides young people and the institutions that support them with leadership training, project resources and a connection to a broader movement.
Indeed, what Ms. Zeenat Rahman and IFYC have been doing is in line with CSRC’s project activity in promoting social integration among communities. In this case, IFYC and CSRC can learn from each other. On this occasion, Ms. Zeenat Rahman also gave souvenir a book titled My Islam, my Faith written by Eboo Patel a founder of IFYC which is very inspiring for the writing module of Best Practices on Revitalizing Moderate Group; Strengthening Social Integration among People of Different Faith.