G20 Policy Breakout Session
The G20 is a forum that brings together the political and economic leadership of the twenty largest economies of the world to address global challenges and coordinate responses to them. In 2020, the forum was hosted virtually with the theme “Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century for All.” This year’s theme is focused on “Time to Heal: Peace Among Cultures, Understanding between Religions.”
The G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20) is a consultative process that seeks to weave interfaith insight and faith perspectives into practical policy recommendations to the G20. ACWAY has been a global youth partner of the G20 Interfaith Forums since 2016. Every year, ACWAY is focused on building concrete policy recommendations informed by challenges that young people (children, youth, and adults under the age of 40) are facing around the world.
This breakout room will specifically focus on building discussion around specific challenges facing young people, and practical recommendations to address them. The takeaways from this specific room will then be integrated into a policy brief to be submitted to the next G20 Interfaith Forum, on behalf of the Children & Youth Working Group.
Questions:
- What concrete activities of religious actions can address gaps in protecting the rights of young people?
- Who should be engaged at the grassroots level when it comes to policy recommendations? Are there certain stakeholders or key players we should engage that we aren’t?
- How are we engaging minority groups or non-represented identities (perspectives of non-member countries) in the policy recommendation process?
- What happens after we issue recommendations?
Action Planning Breakout Session
From ideation to evaluation, let’s talk action! This breakout room seeks to take an action-based approach to discuss how young people can develop and implement their ideas into successful interfaith projects, including context-specific strategies, challenges, and lessons learned.
We come from different contexts and backgrounds, where our work as interfaith and social justice activists has different political and social implications. Recognising this, what are the strategies and praxes that are useful to be shared with each other? How do we move between the local and global in our responses to social injustice?
As young people we are expertly positioned to be navigating the current challenges of our world. We know our communities best, and therefore have the skills to be imagining and co-creating our desired futures. In this breakout session, we hope to create a space of inspiration, skills-sharing and learning. Join us! The breakout room will be run in collaboration with our partners and friends at URI – United Religions Initiative.
Questions:
- What can we learn from each other about the ideation, implementation and impact stages of an interfaith project? How do we bridge the ‘intergenerational gap’ to ensure continuity in the work/movement?
- What capacities need to be further developed within young people to ensure that they are able to design and implement successful interfaith projects?
- What partnerships are needed to support young people delivering interfaith projects?
- What are the main obstacles preventing young people from being more involved in the interfaith sector?
Local Context Breakout Session
Description:
Context matters. We hear that a lot and rightly so. The interfaith sector is diverse with many challenges and opportunities that differ from country to country and even within the country as well as within the same religion/faith/culture. The complexity of diversity is a strength in our community but how does it affect interfaith dialogue? What can we learn from each other at the local level about what works and what doesn’t? Can we share examples of locally-led initiatives? This interactive session will explore the ACWAY IDGs, and how we can contribute to these at a local level with account for local context. The session will be led by our local partner GenLab based in Bangladesh.
Questions:
- Do you have any local or regional specific challenges/considerations that (negatively) impact on promoting interfaith work/action? Are there any local or regional specific opportunities that encourage interfaith work?
- Is interfaith a redundant topic in some conflict areas and should we be addressing peace building, conflict resolution or stick to targeting the root causes (where the root cause is not political)?
- How do we work in a safe digital space and combat hate speech?
During the session we will look at the Interfaith Development Goals (IDGs) and discuss the following (https://acway.org/interfaith-development-goals/):
From the list of IDGs, which 3 do you think would be of top priority or relevance for your local community and why?
Please contact info@acway.org for any questions or additional information.