22 augustus 2013

Peace, Religion and Female Leadership

The Platform Women & Sustainable Peace (VDV) organizes in 2013 the project ‘Peace, Religion and Female Leadership: religion as a source of inspiration for female leadership in Peace and Reconciliation.’

In this project, we promote the supporting and legitimating aspects of Christianity and Islam for women’s roles as peace activists. Thus, we intend to increase the cultural basic support for women’s leadership in peace work, as well with Christians as with Muslims (both men and women).

Female peace activists, both inside and outside the Netherlands, need more knowledge about their religion, as a source of inspiration for their peace work as well as to defend themselves against oppressing interpretations of the religious texts.

The Platform VDV invited an Indonesion Islam theologist (Musdah Mulia) and an African Christian theologist (Esther Mombo), both women, to visit the Netherlands. They will give lectures and perform in trainings. We organize a broad platform for their ideas through the social media and several publications.

The project in the Netherlands is the start of an international program with the Platform VDV’s foreign partner organisations.

Oxfam Novib and the commission PIN of the Dutch Religious Conference support this program financially.

Prof. Dr. Siti Musdah Mulia

Siti Musdah Mulia has been a Research Professor of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) since 2003. She is also a lecturer on Islamic Political Thought of the School of Graduate Studies of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta, Indonesia. Since 2007 she has been the Chairperson of the Indonesian Conference on Religion for Peace, a NGO which actively promotes interfaith dialogues, pluralism and democracy for peace. She was a Senior Advisor of Minister of Religious Affairs (1999-2007), and through that institution, in her capacity as the coordinator of the Team for Gender Mainstreaming she launched in 2004 The Counter Legal Draft of the Compilation of Islamic Law. She was also the head of the Research Division of The Council of Indonesian Ulema (MUI) (2000-2005). She is very active in the academic field; she has been an international visiting fellow in a number of universities all over the world.

“The main cause of the lower position of women in muslim communities is the religious interpretation
by the owners of religious authority and that is not the religion itself.
So the solution of the problem is religion’s re-interpretation.” – Musda Muliah

Prof. Esther Mombo

Esther Mombo is deputy vice chancellor (Academics) of St. Paul’s United Theological College in Limuru, Kenya, where she teaches church history and theologies from women’s perspectives. Mombo is also a member of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians and writes on women’s issues, evangelism, HIV/AIDS, Christian-Muslim relations, and poverty in Africa. She is a member of the Inter-Anglican Doctrinal and Theological Commission. Mombo earned her B.D. from St. Paul’s United Theological College, M.Phil. from Trinity College Dublin, and Ph.D. at Edinburgh University .

“Without religion, women would not have the strength to support all misery that they meet.
Faith is a liberating power and a great consolation for them.
It gives them hope that things can change, will become better.” – Esther Mombo