Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

Author(s): Parliament of the World’s Religions
Publisher: USA Parliament of the Worlds Religions

Page 324

PROGRAM DESCRI
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
central to help maintain the moral, political and social order of the community.
Also known as His Majesty Daagbo Hounion Houna II, Robert Houndohome Hounon is the supreme spiritual leader of the great council of the Vodun Hwendo tradition. A veteran of numerous technical and spiritual positions, he is president of the association ELOSE, whose major aims include reconciling tradition and modernity, promoting literacy. and acquiring and transmitting written knowledge. Mr Hounon is also an adviser on interreligious action for peace in Africa.
Traditional Knowledge: The Value
of Teaching and Preserving Traditional
Knowledge
Jennie R Joe, USA: Dine, Moderator
Lucy Mulenkei, Kenya: Maasai
Margaret Lokawua, Uganda: Karimjong
Anna Pinto, India: Meiti
Room 210
Panel Discussion
Indigenous peoples have the right to enjoy and promote their own cultures, traditions, languages, and spirituality. and to have a respected platform from which this traditional knowledge can be learned and shared. Panel members will discuss how they are utilising different methods to promote traditional knowledge.
Dr Jennie R Joe is a member of the Navajo Nation. She is on faculty in the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM), in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona. Since 1987, Dr Joe has also been the Director of the Native American Research and Training Center in the DFCM. A medical anthropologist, Dr Joe has been engaged in a number of community-based research projects with American Indian/Alaska Native communities.
Lucy Mulenkei is a Maasai from Kenya. She is the Executive Director of the Indigenous Information Network (IIN) in Kenya and works with the African Indigenous Women's Organization in the East African Region. She has coordinated training and capacity building on environment and sustainable development for Indigenous rural, nomadic pastoralists and hunter gatherers. Her main focus is on biodiversity conservation and traditional knowledge.
Margaret Lokawua is a member of the United Nations Forum on Indigenous Issues. She is also the Chairperson for the Civil Society for Indigenous Organizations in Karamonja, as well as the Director of the Indigenous Women Environmental Conservation Project.
Anna Pinto is Executive Director of CORE ICentre for Organisation, Research and Education), an Indigenous peoples' policy research and advocacy organisation based in Northeast India. An active member of the Indian Women's Movement for over two decades, she is also a prolific writer whose work addresses and critiques such issues as policy initiatives by the Indian government and international agencies such as the World Bank.
320 PWR Parliament of the World's Religions Jain Education International
INTERRELIGIOUS SESSION
Creative Methodologies for Interreligious Dialogue
Rev Bud Heckman Josh Daneshforooz Rev Nicole Diroff Bettina Gray
Rev Sam Muyskens
Dr Tarunjit Singh Butalia Matthew Weiner
11:30am-1:00pm
Paul Chaffee
Room 211
Interactive Workshop
This workshop features an overview of new methodologies or fresh twists on old methods in interreligious dialogue. It is designed to be a 'tasting' smorgasbord of ideas from a variety of interfaith leaders in the United States and beyond.
Rev Bud Heckman is Director for External Relations at Religions for Peace, the world's largest coalition of representatives of the world's great religions dedicated to peace. An ordained Christian minister of the United Methodist Church, Rev Heckman is a frequent speaker and writer on interfaith relations and editor of a new reference book for the field called 'InterActive Faith: The Essential Interreligious Community-Building Handbook [SkyLight Paths, 2008).
Josh Daneshforooz is currently the Film Initiative Research Associate at the Pluralism Project at Harvard. He is also the president of the Harvard Society for Comparative Theology and founder of All Nations Education, a nonprofit devoted to providing young adults in the developing world with college scholarships that focus on cultivating servant leadership and community service. Josh is currently pursuing a Master of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, where he focuses in comparative theology.
Rev Nicole Diroff is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and an employee of the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia. She works with the Center's Interfaith Youth Service Learning Initiative and serves as the coordinator for the Religious Leader Council. Rev Diroff has expertise in youth development, mentoring, ecumenical and interfaith relations. She is one of two representatives of the United Church of Christ on the National Council of Churches (USA) Interfaith Relations Commission.
Bettina Gray is a co-founder and current Chair of the North American Interfaith Network (NAIN. As recent visiting scholar at the Women's Leadership Institute at Mills College her area of focus was 'Religions and Global Security. She is also an Emmy-nominated television host and producer. Her media work includes the 27-part public television series 'A Parliament of Souls which aired in 140 countries and was filmed at the 1993 Parliament of Religions.
Rev Sam Muyskens is the former Executive Director of Inter-Faith Ministers (17 years), one of the founding members of the North American Interfaith Network, presently hosts a local interfaith TV talk show, and is a consultant to emerging interfaith organisations.
Dr Tarunjit Singh Butalia is the Chairperson of the National Interfaith Committee of the World Sikh Council - America Region, Moderator of Religions for Peace USA, Vice-Chair of North American Interfaith Network, member of Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions, and a member of the Board of Scholars and Practitioners of The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue. He also serves as the President of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio.
Matthew Weiner is the program director at the Interfaith Center of New York. He has an MTS from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD from Union Theological Seminary. His writing about public religion and interfaith has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal and the Huffington Post.
Paul Chaffee, ordained in the United Church of Christ (USA), has been the Executive Director of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio in