ABU DHABI: The Muslim Council of Elders concluded the second edition of the Azadi Fellowship Programme in Islamabad, Pakistan, graduating 25 young men and women from various religious sects and beliefs.

Participants completed a specialised training plan that included a series of discussion and dialogue sessions led by a distinguished group of speakers from around the world, including the United States of America, France, the United Kingdom, Al-Azhar University in Egypt, Romania, Indonesia, and Pakistan.

Sessions focused on empowering and equipping the participants to play an active and influential role in their communities and globally, to promote values of dialogue and communication between different religions and cultures, spread the values of tolerance and human fraternity, address global peacebuilding challenges, and counter hate speech, extremism, and discrimination.

The programme, organised by the council over a period of two weeks and was held in collaboration with the International Research Council
for Religious Affairs (IRCRA), the Islamic Research Institute at the International Islamic University, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Centre of Excellence on Countering Violent Extremism (KPCECVE), and the Resala organization in Pakistan. It also included 100 religious leaders and figures, alongside numerous officials, politicians, thinkers, intellectuals, academics, and peacebuilding experts from 15 different regions within Pakistan, representing various religions and speaking five different languages.

Participants praised the pioneering efforts of the Muslim Council of Elders, under the chairmanship of His Eminence Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in promoting the values of human fraternity, tolerance, and coexistence, and in building bridges of communication and dialogue between different religions. They expressed their commitment to enhancing the national narrative of social harmony, acting as ambassadors of coexistence and peace, and spreading the message of the Document on Human Fraternity withi
n their communities.

The Azadi Fellowship Programme also included a series of important visits to several prominent research centers and cultural and heritage sites in Islamabad, Pakistan. Such visits aimed to introduce program participants to the best practices in the field of peacebuilding and to promote tolerance, coexistence, and religious and cultural pluralism.

Source: Emirates News Agency