Rationale

For a long time, The SCMs and church youth have contributed to ecumenical movement through producing future leaders. Nowadays, this tradition has been very weak due to several reasons. However, we recognize that without producing young leaderships the whole ecumenical movements would have a serious problem in the near future.  One of the reasons is that ecumenical student and youth organizations were unable to provide proper venues for young people to train and improve themselves as qualified ecumenical leaders.  The previous leadership programs have been so partial in terms of agendas that they could not nurture young leaders with comprehensive understanding on the crucial ecumenical agendas.

This program hopes to encourage, develop, support and strengthen systematic and purposeful leadership development for the local, national and regional ecumenical movement.   In order to achieve these goals, there should be more attention on planning of modules and transmitting the skills and experiences by running modules that are relevant to our context and network.  Therefore, there will be a process of leading to the setting of modules, drawing resources from partners, and also, a conducive mechanism to network with local endeavors. Also the duration of this training program at the regional level is much more extended than the previous practices.  This comes from evaluation that the previous programs could not provide comprehensive and deeper understanding on the ecumenical agendas mainly because of time limitation.  We estimate that at least 35-40 days, if not enough, will be the minimum to achieve the goals of the leadership courses.   

Objectives:

• Sharpen their awareness and analysis of Asian society and challenge to the churches through sharing of experiences, exposure, studies and reflections.
• Study the biblical-theological perspectives on ecumenism and on issues and ideologies related to Asia and global society.
• Trace the history of ecumenical movement in the national, Asian and global levels, identifying convergence, challenges and possibilities.
• Search alternative approach to communicate and advocate ecumenical witness among students and youth in the concrete life of the peoples.
• Strengthen each other in their ecumenical journey and aspiration.

An outline of the training module:

Module 1: Orientation

Aims: To be able to introduce participants themselves and have a sense of being part of the group. Understanding the background and the organizers and to start building community.

§         Introduction of participants

§         Introduction of WSCF-AP and CCA

§         Community Building

Module 2: Defining our times

Aims: To have more critical understanding about the reality of Asian plurality and the dynamic and complexity of such context. 

§         Understanding host country and Exposure

§         Personal history as Social history

§         Analysis of socio-political and economic setting of Asia

Module 3: Reading the signs of the times

Aims: This is an intensive study module to clarify current theological positions dealing with the context of Asia. The participants will have acquired a strong theoretical as well as theological base. It also aims to challenge participants to doing theology in context.

§        Politics, Ecology, Human rights, Feminism, Inter-faith dialogue and actions,  

§        Globalization and economic justice

Module 4: The ecumenical movement

Aims: To understand and challenge the prevalent practices and ideology in the ecumenical movement in Asia and worldwide as well. Participants are also expected to be aware of the different trends of movement in Asia

§        An overview of ecumenical movement: past and present

§        Problematizing the understanding and perspectives of ecumenical movement

§        Understanding and commenting on new social movements, the trend of civil movements and spiritual movements.

Module 5: Communicating the ecumenical vision to the youth

Aims: To set guiding principles for promoting ecumenical vision to the students and youth and experiment the different forms of building and strengthening this communication in order to “act locally”.

§        Learning to express and communicate ecumenism by curriculum writing, liturgy, symbols, arts and images

Module 6: Reflexive Learning

Aims: To wrap up this extended training program by reflections on what the participants have learned and to suggest ways to moving forward in challenging the ecumenical movement, be it local, regional and global.

§        Articles writing on certain issues, topics or possible actions and work plans.

Summary:

Module 1: 2 days, Module 2: 8 days, Module 3: 12 days, Module 4: 6 days, Module 5: 3 days, Module 6: 2 days, Others: 1 day, Free: 3 days  Total: 35 days

Date: July 15^th(arrival) to August 19^th(departure), 2001

Venue: Chiangmai, Thailand

Participants : one senior friend(or staff) from all movements in the AP region, few from other regions, staff and officers

The 1^st Information Packages Mailing Date: January, 2001 

Rationale

Religious fundamentalism has re-emerged as a potent force in the last few decades of the 20th century.   It is a growing trend within the various religions of the world.  In fact, it is one of the main forces that continue to fuel the atmosphere of tension among communities of different faiths and cultural backgrounds, a reality that can intensify even as we enter the new century.  Indeed, today, the Asia-Pacific region is experiencing and witnessing intensified religious conflicts which have caused massive human rights violations and disintegration of communities.  Whether in Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism or even Christianity, or any other religion, religious fundamentalism poses a great danger to many Asian communities. 

It is a fact that none of the societies in Asia is homogeneous or monolithic. By their very nature, Asian societies are highly pluralistic in terms of culture, religion, ethnicity, language, caste, class, etc.  But the religious conflicts that arise, resulting from religious fundamentalism that sometimes lead to fanaticism, are too often used by sections of society as a tool either for gaining political and economic power or for staying in power.  Nevertheless, whether for purely religious reasons, or for religiously-coated socio-political agendas, religious-cultural conflicts have resulted in more human rights violations and disintegration of societies in the Asia-Pacific region.  Sadly, it is often the minorities of the society who suffer the most from human rights violations.

For instance, in Bangladesh, religious minorities -- which are mainly Christians and Hindus -- are continuously being persecuted and displaced from their ancestral lands as the dominantly Muslim Bangladesh State continues to implement the “Vested Property Act”.  The Islamic fundamentalists are instigating communal riots and burning down churches and temples and other properties of Hindus and Christians.

In India, Hindu extremists have launched an organized attack on Muslims and Christians by burning their churches and convents and by raping women even though the India's constitution guarantees religious rights of minorities. 

In Pakistan, Apartheid mode of electorate has thrown non-Muslim citizens out of the national mainstream. The Blasphemy Law has been used as a tool for religious persecution of religious minorities.  Moreover, the New Evidence Law has rendered the testimony of non-Muslims to a secondary position.   The Shariah Law promulgated in 1991 prohibits non-Muslims from becoming presiding officers of trial courts dealing with cases for which Islamic punishment has been prescribed.

In Sri Lanka, the dominantly Buddhist State has made constitutional revisions which undermines religious minority’s rights to appease Buddhist extremists.  There has been a systematic campaign to incite anti-Christian feeling, and a clamour to introduce laws prohibiting the free choice of one’s religion.

In Indonesia, the ethnic-religious conflict (between the Chinese Christian Indonesians and the Muslim Indonesians) continues to intensify.  In recent years, the conflict between the Christians and Muslims, particularly in Ambon, Maluku Island, has resulted in the killings of thousands of people and the loss of many properties.  

Elsewhere in Asia, the culture of violence, hate and intolerance fueled by religious fundamentalism creates a suffocating atmosphere for the people in Asia particularly for the minority groups. 

It is ironic that religions have played a big role in intensifying the conflicts that are going on among the Asian communities.   Ironic because if we only seriously dig deeper into the teachings of these religions, it is not difficult to find in them some of the most profound teachings on upholding human rights and respecting life. 

The central message of the Buddha can be summarized as “liberation of all kinds of suffering”. Thus, Buddhism fully recognizes that every human being, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, caste or class has inalienable right to the fullness of life, liberty and happiness.

In Islam, respecting the rights of human beings is closely linked to good relationship among the people in the community.  To violate the human rights of fellow human is to violate the rights of God.  Moreover, the Holy Koran clearly states that all human beings have the right to religion and the freedom of conscience.

These teachings are very much in consonance with the teachings of Christianity on the universal value of every human being as having been created in the image of God.  Thus, in the Christian mindset, respecting each human person's right to life and dignity is respecting the image of God that is in him or her. 

Teachings such as these only show that there is a great need for Asians to understand the true teachings of their different traditions.  Understanding them better may help us free ourselves from blind adherence to any kind of fundamentalism in religion that only puts us in opposition to Asians of other faiths.  Understanding them better may also help us understand better the truth behind many religious conflicts: the socio-economic and political agendas of some sections of society.   Furthermore, understanding all these dynamics better may help us in the WSCF-AP region to respond more appropriately to the trends and causes of religious conflicts and their related human rights violations.  One urgent response is to initiate inter-faith dialogue to promote the works of human rights, justice and peace for communities in Asia, right in their cultural and religious diversity.

Objectives

• To enable participants to analyze the causes of religious conflict and intolerance that brings about gross human rights violations.
• To give participants a venue for studying together the interconnection of political, economic and religious power structures. 
• To encourage participants to critically review their analysis of national religious conflicts. 
• To give the participants an opportunity for a deeper understanding of the major religions from the human rights perspectives.
• To encourage the WSCF-AP and its local movements to actively involve in or initiate local inter-faith dialogues for the promotion of human rights awareness.