Community Building

Fostering strong, healthy communities is at the core of URI’s work.
Youth for Peace CC's summer school in Bosnia and Herzegovina

URI encourages people to help each other by reaching across religious, ethnic, and cultural lines, creating a culture of respect and safety that fosters peace even during difficult times.

Examples of our work in this Action Area:

  • In Pakistan, the URI MCC Islamabad office works for inter-religious peace by addressing local Muslims' and Christians' joint need for necessities like roads, sewage systems, gas and water
  • In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Youth for Peace CC's summer school brought together young people from different backgrounds to serve their community through volunteering efforts like helping disadvantaged families, painting houses, and repairing old cemeteries
  • After a Helsinki mosque was vandalized, URI members from the URI Multiregion formed an interfaith group to clean it, sending a strong message that they would not allow their community to be divided
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Isabel Ramos, My Teacher and Friend Charles Gibbs

Multiregion
Community Building

In August 2008 near Iguaçu Falls, 90 representatives of 12 Cooperation Circles from 11 countries gathered for the Third URI Latin America regional assembly, which was to be followed by a day-long meeting for the Indigenous people attending. Isabel Ramos, a gifted copla singer from Cordoba, Argentina, was one of the Indigenous people. At the end of the first evening, I learned that when Isabel first saw me, a white, male Christian, she ran weeping and screaming from the room. I represented the devil that aimed to destroy Indigenous cultures and the people who lived them.