IEA at The Goldin Institute for Peace and Reconciliation Conference in Amritsar, India on November 1-7, 2005:

Three delegates from some of the Jerusalem-based groups of the Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA) participated in this conference – Shlomo Alon, Chairman of IEA and the Jewish coordinator of the Arabic Speaking group, Tareq Masarwah, the Moslem coordinator of the Deprived Neighborhoods group and Leah Lublin, the Jewish coordinator of IEA-Reut/Sadaqa, together with approximately 120 delegates from 25 countries. It is interesting to note that some delegates were from countries that we had no previous connection to such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, to name just a few.

The IEA delegates gave a presentation about their work in Jerusalem on Wednesday, November 2nd, which many people attended.

On Thursday, November 3rd, together on the panel with delegates from Kabul, Afghanistan, we gave a more in-depth presentation of IEA's work in Jerusalem towards peace and reconciliation to the entire delegation. We were commended by many delegates who were impressed by our presentations and said that IEA truly represents peace building in the Middle East.

Altogether, an invaluable learning experience was gained from the myriad of ways people build bridges towards peace in their cities.

In addition to the conference, the itinerary also included interesting and beautiful site visits to the holy Sikh Golden Temple at Amritsar during the Diwali holiday, the Sacred Heart School and the Pingalwara charitable society, where the children performed wonderful Indian folk dances in full costume, as well as a visit to the Pakistan/India border at Wagah.

We were encouraged to build partnerships for future activities, and many delegates expressed their desire to partner with us – some of them include Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Kiev (Ukraine), Birmingham (UK), Cape Town (South Africa), Bogota (Colombia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia). We shall also revitalize our previous partnership with Philadelphia. We learned a lot from each other, and look forward to working with our partners in the very near future.

We thank the Goldin Institute for this great opportunity and the Sikh community for being such wonderful and hospitable hosts.


(Back to Reports)