About
In 2021 UNEPs Faith for Earth launched the Faith for Earth National Coordination Hub in partnership with the United Religions Initiative (URI) in response to the climate crisis.
As a global network in 109 countries with 16 regional offices, URI Cooperation Circles are responding to the climate crisis in potent ways. Through dialogue and hospitality, community organizing and co-created action, URI builds bridges that connect us more deeply to ourselves, to one another, and to all life.
This partnership seeks to mobilise the vast interfaith network of grassroots faith leaders, faith-based organizations, and community members in India, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ethiopia to respond to the urgent, climate-related concerns at the local, national, and regional level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHPtZ--aYbI
Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) are a vital, necessary, and influential group of actors in attaining the SDGs and changing the current course of climate and societal catastrophe. On the ground, FBOs provide immediate support and care to people. Faith Leaders engender the trust of their communities and inspire action that brings social change and transformation to villages and cities around the globe, much of it in alignment with and working toward the SDGs. When appropriately informed and sufficiently prepared, FBOs invite wide-spread local participation and mass mobilization for broad behaviour change, and cultural shifts.
The goal of this partnership is to:
- Be Inspired by Faith Leaders and FBOs on the intrinsic relationship between faith, religion, and the environment;
- Support Faith Leaders and FBOs to address environmental priorities (Environment Education, Biodiversity, Ecosystem Restoration, Sustainable Resources Management, etc) efficiently and sustainably;
- Take Action at a local level and scale up efforts on a national and regional level.
This will happen through a well-defined process of taking stock of existing projects, increasing awareness about critical environmental challenges, and building the capacity of Faith Leaders. Each Hub will approach these objectives through similar activities, cognisant that the capacity and environmental priorities of FBOs in the various countries differ.
