URI celebrates age diversity across our network and honors different generations as we strongly promote youth engagement, youth leadership, and intergenerational collaboration and learning at all levels.
As members of URI collaborate “to bring the wisdom and values of our religions, spiritual expressions, and Indigenous traditions to bear on the economic, environmental, political and social challenges facing our Earth community,” the active participation and leadership of young people are essential to a healthy world. Rising URI leaders are growing our network’s enduring interfaith connections, expanding our capacities to end religiously motivated violence, and cultivating impactful practices of peace, justice, and healing. Together, we need to be working with and for current and future generations.
Click on the yellow arrows to see the photos.
Through our lively network and interdependent learning ecosystems young people are supporting each other and preparing themselves with the skills and experiences needed to be spiritually-rooted changemakers in their communities.
Recent Highlights of Youth Engagement in URI
The URI youth network has continued to grow through active engagement of youth-led CCs and members, who are collaborating across the world and leading change in their local communities. Here are some highlights of 2024.
The URI Youth Month Challenge
Launched on International Youth Day Aug 12th, 60 members representing 24 different countries signed up to take on the URI Youth Month Challenge. The Challenge included four tasks:
1) sharing a meal with someone of a different faith,
2) designing a poster against hate speech,
3) taking part in an earth restoration activity, and
4) writing a letter to a local or global leader calling for peace.
With each task, participants shared their reflections and learnings from the experience. Watch the video below for highlights!
2024 Youth Seed Grant Projects
Eight Seed Grants of $500 were awarded to CC projects that were youth-led and collaborative initiatives to advance the URI Purpose. Awarded projects were in South Africa, Malawi, Uganda, Jordan, and Nigeria.
In total projects reached approximately 400 people engaging in interfaith changemaking efforts in their communities.
Each project was unique in its focus, but all gave opportunities for youth leadership, interfaith collaboration, and the advancement of URI's Purpose.
URI Europe Youth Camp
The "Seeding the Peace" URIE Interfaith youth camp, held in The Hague, Netherlands, brought together 20 teenagers and six youth facilitators from across Europe for a unique five-day experience. This camp aimed to foster multicultural friendships, explore interfaith dialogue, and promote ecological justice.
URI LAC Youth Leadership Programme
The "URI LAC Young Peace Leaders" Program has been a year-long learning experience for 25 young people from CCs across Latin America and the Caribbean. Meeting weekly, participants have engaged in educational workshops covering different thematic areas of violence prevention, earth restoration and interfaith dialogue. The group are working together throughout the year, and will gather in Bogatá at the end of the year to consolidate their community projects and work they want to continue together.
Faith for Earth Youth Council
URI is proud to have a strong partnership with UNEP’s Faith for Earth Youth Council, with Greshma Raju, Grace Chilongo, Dhruv Bhatt, and Vasu Bandu - all members of URI - being selected for the Faith for Earth Youth Council 2024-26.
The Faith for Earth Youth Council is a project coordinated by UNEPs Faith for Earth Coalition in collaboration with the Faith Thematic Working Group under Children and Youth Major Group (CYMG) to UNEP. Read the Council's Action Plan here.
If you are working on areas of environmental protection or climate action, feel free to reach out to any of these individuals to connect with the Faith for Earth Youth Council.
Get Involved at URI:
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Join the monthly URI Youth Connection Café’s
URI Youth Connection Cafés (YCC) are a monthly open space for any young person in URI to share their work and learn from each other, deepening their skills in leading and initiating changemaking projects in their communities. Click here to sign up for your monthly invite!
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Connect with Interfaith Engagement on University Campuses
Interfaith engagement on student campuses is an active part of the URI network. We are working to build Intergenerational Collaborative Action Hubs for connecting students with mentors in the field to support collaborative projects. If you’d like to be a part of this, or are interested in connecting with other universities doing interfaith work, please fill out this form or contact Sarah - [email protected]
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Join the Global Campaign to End Violence
Are you working to prevent violence in your community? Or seeing the way violence is impacting those around you and want to do something about it? Join URI’s Campaign to End Violence
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Find Resources for Meaningful Youth Engagement
Over the years URI has developed resources to help support meaningful youth engagement across the network. Both these resources were developed in a collaborative process with members of the URI network:
- URI Toolkit for Meaningful Youth Participation - 2021 Edition
- Tools to Engage Youth in Interfaith Efforts
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Contact the URI Youth Working Group
The URI Youth Working Group currently serves as an informal collective of youth members of the network who have offered their time in an advisory and voluntary capacity to support youth engagement and deeper connections across the network. If you have an idea or concern you’d like to share with the working group, please contact [email protected]
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Read More Stories of Youth Activities across the Network
Please click here to read the most recent stories of youth engagement.