The Interfaith Cooperation Forum (ICF) committee meeting

The Interfaith Cooperation Forum (ICF) committee meeting was held from August 24 to 26 in Kuala Lumpur. Those attending the meeting represented members of the ICF Organizing Committee as well as the ICF Working Committee. Committee members discussed activities of the School of Peace (SOP) 2006 as well as the possibility of arranging exchange working experiences between some of the participations of SOP 2006 to help them continue their learning experiences and strengthen the regional interfaith justpeace network which has been initiated. Plans were also made for holding SOP 2007. Based on the experience from the first SOP, the curriculum will be revised and the learning process restructured. Once again twenty participants from conflict areas in Asia, representing different religious faiths and ethnicities, will be invited.

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The idea of setting up the School of Peace (SOP) was first suggested during a brainstorming session in Prapat, North Sumatera, Indonesia during the first Inter-religious Consultation in 2003. Following this consultation the Interfaith Cooperation Forum (ICF) was established to carry on the movement. As the ICF slowly begin to take shape following this initial consultation, the possibility of developing the SOP continued to be raised. In 2004, two workshops were held by ICF, one focusing on gender and the other focusing on youth as peacemakers. The participants of both of these workshops suggested future activities similar to the SOP.

In 2005 the Working Committee of ICF identified SOP as a major activity to be organized and carried out in 2006. The aim of SOP would be designed to encourage young people from around Asia to become agents of transformation in the task of building interfaith and interethnic cultures and communities of justpeace. See the complete report attached.