Buddhist Global Relief recently received a unique honor in being requested to join a task force on interfaith action to alleviate poverty around the world. The first meeting of the task force took place at the White House on July 26. The task force is intended to spearhead the Global Initiative for Faith, Health and Development, organized by the Center for Interfaith Action (CIFA), and launched in response to President Obama’s call for the world’s religions to collaborate on issues of shared humanitarian concern. Its objective is to produce a strategic framework for advancing and multiplying inter-religious cooperation on action against global poverty and illness.
The task force brings together the world’s most prominent faith-based relief organizations for the purpose of designing the framework. In appointing the task force, CIFA wanted to broaden the range of the Global Initiative by including delegates from other religions besides the three Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. After a careful review, they chose BGR to represent Buddhism. Though BGR has been in existence for only two years, the organizers were impressed by its significant achievements and the broad reach of its programs during such a short period of activity.
CIFA invited BGR chairperson Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi and executive director Kim Behan to participate in the White House meeting on July 26. The conveners of the meeting gave a broad presentation of CIFA’s plans to increase interfaith collaboration, illustrated by detailed charts and diagrams. This was followed by a lively exchange of views and comments from the members of the task force, with appreciated contributions from Ven. Bodhi and Kim Behan.
In future meetings, the task force will design a strategy to strengthen the contribution of the religious sector to poverty alleviation and global development. The next meeting will be held on October 8 at the United Nations in New York, followed by a two-day session in November, to be held in Washington at the National Cathedral and the White House. The hope is that the strategic framework will create a clear plan of action for different faith communities to work together in addressing the problems of poverty, hunger, and disease.
