One World in Dialogue
Aim
Promote knowledge and respect between people of different faiths to develop a community that may give each an opportunity to fully develop their religious and human identity, as individuals as well as active citizens; contribute to an increased general understanding of religion and its role in society. In particular, focusing on religion as a constructive force. An important part of this work consists of preventing conflicts related to religion and contributing to solving them when they actually arise.
History
One World in Dialogue (OWID) is an idealistic, network-based organisation with main seat in Trondheim. It was formed in 2004 by individuals belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, but is open to all that share its goals. The organisation has two levels: the main organisation, seated in Trondheim, and different local ones. The main organisation takes care of the work on the national and international level , while the local organisations work in relation to their local communities.
IRD Activities
- Local Dialogue
Locally, it consists of meetings and celebrations of the different religions' feast. At these events, people from the celebrating religion explain what the feast means to them and after that we share a meal. Even if the work is local, participants also travel on dialogue tours together, visiting sites that are important to religious life. The travels have till now mainly gone to Turkey and Georgia
- International Dialogical Work - Universal Code of Conduct on Holy Sites
A few years after the foundation of EVID, when the work had foremost consisted of dialogue between indiviudals belonging to different faiths, we chose to focus on holy sites. This is something all religions have in common and holy sites are of great importance to men if they are to be able to live their faith. At the same time, holy sites, originally intended to be places for community, reconciliation and peace between men, often become places for conflicts and even wars. In our opinion there was a need for a code on holy sites that describes why they are of importance to men, lays down some fundamental human rights related to them, describes way of avoiding conflicts related to them and establishes mechanisms for reconciliation when conflicts appear. With this point of departure, in 2008 and 2009 One World in Dialogue, together with the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights organized two large international conferences in Trondheim with participants from religious and political leaders from Norway, Great Britain, USA, The Balkans, Turkey, Armenia, Israel and Palestine. The conferences ended in an unanimously accepted “Code on Holy Sites” that internationally became known as “The Trondheim Code”. It's action plan consists of seeking support for the Code from religious leaders and authorities from Christian churches and Jewish and Muslim communities and hold a signing ceremony with religious leaders from Europe and the Middle East at an appropriate time and venue, seeking support and initiate dialogue with other religious traditions, with a view to developing a universally shared code on holy sites, and inviting a UN body to take note of the code and to consider adopting its contents as an international convention.
Main Focus Countries of Activities
Norway - Turkey - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Israel - State of Palestine - Indonesia - Nigeria - Georgia - World