Busboys and Poets welcomes Interfaith Community Initiatives to the Nicolás Guillén Room for this private event. To plan your event, complete our online form HERE or call the events office @ 202-332-6432.
ATLANTA’S WORLD PILGRIMS TO VISIT NATION’S CAPITAL 20th Pilgrimage Will Use Dialogue Experience to Advance Peace and Justice
[Atlanta, GA] Atlanta’s renowned interfaith leadership program, World Pilgrims, will be taking its 20th Pilgrimage to Washington, DC, May 31 – June 2, 2016. This Pilgrimage will be an opportunity for pilgrims to both share what we have learned through our travels and dialogues with national interfaith leadership and to learn about and engage in advocacy issues that are vital to the future of our community.
The intense three-day Pilgrimage with more than 50 Pilgrimage alumni, including Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist clergy and lay leaders, begins with a Congressional briefing and ends with a meeting at the White House with the Office of Faith-based and Community Partnerships. In between, the Pilgrims will meet with national interfaith leaders; discuss some of the critical issues in our communities, and model the unique World Pilgrims method of dialogue. A visit to the Newseum’s Center for Religious Freedom will focus on faith communities and the media.
A highlight of the Pilgrimage will be a panel discussion at Busboys and Poets in Takoma Park. Joining us will be Jennifer Butler, Faith in Public Life; Rev. Dr. Gerald Durley, White House Champion for Change, Faith Climate Leader; Curtis Ramsey-Lucas, Director of Interfaith Disability Coalition, American Association of People with Disabilities. The conversation will look at the way World Pilgrims can impact policies around Gun Violence, Environmental Sustainability and Rights for People with Disabilities.
The time is right for World Pilgrims to visit the nation’s capital. In line with President Obama’s recent visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore, the Pilgrims seek to build bridges of understanding, create strong interfaith dialogues and actively –proactively – work to counter the current vitriolic anti-Muslim, racist and xenophobic attitudes that seem to have become a part of the current political debate.
For more information, a copy of the Pilgrimage schedule and roster of participants, contact Judy Marx, Executive Director, Interfaith Community Initiatives at judy@interfaithci.org or 678-575-3409
Background: Since 2002, nearly 450 Christians, Muslims and Jews from Atlanta have left the comforts of home to embark on physical, experiential and intensely spiritual adventures. After 9/11, the founders of World Pilgrims recognized that the best path to a more peaceful world is to intentionally bring together diverse individuals (race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual identity, political, profession and age) to come together, through shared experiences, to better understand each other and the world in which we all live. Now a program of Interfaith Community Initiatives (www.interfaithci.org), World Pilgrims have taken faraway journeys to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East as well explored the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, Canada.
