The Pakistan Council for Social Welfare & Human Rights (PCSW&HR) Chariman Muhammad Ijaz Noori (pictured above), announced today that the PCSW&HR, a Cooperation Circle (CC) of United Religions Initiative, has received the prestigious Intercultural Innovation Award, presented by the UN Alliiance of Civiiization(UNAOC) and the BMW group.
The award recognizes PCSW&HR’s “work and achievements in the promotion of intercultural understanding and cooperation through the use of innovative methods and tools.”
Chairman Muhammad Ijaz Noori attributes the award to the efforts of the organization’s executives and staff, and the technical support and feedback of “friends and peace lovers.”
He said that the award is dedicated to “All people martyred during the fight against terrorism and extremism.”
Along with the award, PCSW&HR now becomes a member of the World Intercultural Facility of Innovation (WIFI), a special program developed by the UNAOC and BMW to “connect inspiring grassroots projects with media, donors, governments and other partners in order to help them in scaling up, replicating and achieving a broader and greater impact.”
The award competition, now in its second year, seeks to “acknowledge brave initiatives that dare to think outside the box, rethinking intercultural work and making an important use of new methods to promote intercultural understanding and cooperation. The Award represents a unique platform for civil society organizations committed to the promotion of cultural diversity and understanding.”
PCSW&HR’s web site and project descriptions will now be available at the WIFI website at http://interculturalinnovation.org/pakistan-council-for-social-welfare-human-rights/.
Over 400 organizations from 70 countries were part of the award selection process, and an international panel of experts made the final selection.
The PCSW&HR project description reads in part:
“This organization visualizes a society with justice, equality durable peace, and universal brotherhood, free of poverty, violence, and equal opportunities for social and economic empowerment to all citizens. Protection of human and Minority rights in Pakistan without any prejudice or bias to color, creed or religion.”
The project theme that drew the attention and recognition of the UN Alliance of Civilization states:
“The project theme is to empower the community, which has reflected the wide diversity of our societies in Pakistan including Muslims, Christian, Hindus, and Sikh etc on Peace Education, Interfaith & Intercultural Harmony and Religious Tolerance. Capacity building and Training of 25 established youth groups, 100 teachers, 100 priest imam and 15 civil society organizations on the issues of promotion of interfaith harmony, religious tolerance, conflict prevention, identification of local problems and their solutions, utilization of local available resources, local fund raising, mutual trust, confidence building, eradication of religious and sectarian extremism. Highlights and sanitize the media and community through workshops to promote the interfaith and intercultural harmony, conflict resolving at grass roots.”
For more information on the work of the Pakistan Council on Social Work & Human Rights CC, go to http://www.uri.org/cooperation_circles/detail/pcswhr or http://www.pcswhr.com.
