Given the current concerns and challenges to social cohesion brought by the increasing reality of diversity of religion and belief, Belieforama offers an educational intervention and prevention of a growing social conflict. It offers awareness of religio-cultural differences and issues faced; it offers the opportunity for the general population who would not necessarily go to interfaith dialogue activities to engage with others on the topic in a secular non-academic setting; it brings believers and non-believers into cooperation for creating the public space; it develops skills for creating inclusive environments, confronting prejudice and intercultural communication; it builds confidence and offers support to change agents who want to find solutions in their professional and personal environments.
Adult educators from a variety of sectors are brought into collaboration through Belieforama (schools, universities, public authorities, community workers, religious leaders, etc.), providing a rich opportunity to create a multidimensional view of the impact of religious diversity issues on the social fabric, and thus be more creative and cooperative to develop strategies that make the impact more positive than negative.
Building upon an earlier EU-Grundtvig project (2004-2006) to develop the award-winning Religious Diversity and Anti-Discrimination Training Module, and an EU Transversal project (2007-2009) to disseminate and exploit it, this project \\\”Belieforama\\\” aims to develop, pilot and implement new methods and materials for validating the competences of educators working with this training programme while at the same time building a Community of Practice (CoP) that provides for a long-term creative exchange on continued programme development.
Belieforama aims to provide greater assurance as to the quality of delivery of this training program that deals with very sensitive and difficult topics. Following a 5-day training and receiving a manual is not at all a guarantee of quality of delivery nor of accountability to report use to the partnership. Through this project we hope to \\\”brand\\\” the quality of the training process via accredited trainers and members in the CoP: \\\”Belieforama\\\”. In this way, the project is also supporting the development of excellence in the field of Religious Diversity training, a new field that is becoming somewhat fashionable but without mechanisms to establish credibility. In this way, we are promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship of the trainers and partners by giving them a competitive edge that is based upon solid education frameworks for validating competences. By the end of this 3 year project, this CoP on religious diversity training can become a genuine point of reference in the field for a variety of educational, professional and political sectors.
Annual users seminars, opportunities for further learning through thematic trainings and a lively web-based forum that gives visibility and work space for material co-creation are a few of the key outputs of this project. In addition, emerging issues from local and European workshops on religious diversity will be gathered, collated and analysed towards the preparation of a Policy Brief in paper and conference form. Up to 50 case studies of how individuals from all walks of life integrate the learning from the training into their personal and/or professional life will be collected and published into a booklet as well as on the website, offering inspiration and practical ideas – showing that it is possible to find creative, innovative and effective strategies to live and work in religious diversity.
