Fr James Channan, OP

Fr James Channan, a Pakistani Dominican has been invited to the President of United States' Interfaith and Community Service Challenge in Washington, DC which will take place from September 20 to 23, 2016.

For this International Higher Education Leadership Forum, 60 scholars are invited from 31 countries and 6 continents to share their experiences and expertise in the field of interreligious dialogue and peace building and learn from each other. Each of the delegates is selected because of his/her work in advancing interfaith cooperation and volunteerism in colleges, universities and places of religious leadership formation.

The aim of the organizers is to gather leaders from around the world to network and share experiences with each other and their counterparts in the United States of America. This is geared towards making the world a more peaceful and harmonious place where there is respect for every person and opportunity for all to contribute their utmost best for a more humane world.

Expected at the conference are scholars from Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Australia, New Zealand, Ethiopia, Sudan, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Kosovo, Switzerland, Oman, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Morocco, Scotland, Lebanon, Jordan, Argentina, Venezuela, Malaysia, Nigeria, Cambodia, South Africa and Syria.

Part of the sessions will take place in the White House, Georgetown University and Gallaudet Berkley Center for Religion and Peace and Hartford Seminary. Several officials from the White House and different Departments of US will be addressing the conference.

It is really a great honour to Fr James and indeed, an honour to the Dominican Order and to Pakistan to be invited to such a high level international conference which is organized at the initiative of the President of United States, Mr Barack Hussain Obama. He was invited to a similar conference last year.

Fr James is well known for his dedicated work in promoting interreligious Dialogue and especially Christian-Muslim dialogue. He is the Director of Peace Center Lahore and URI Regional Coordinator Pakistan. He is the author of four books in this field and delivered papers on this in various universities in USA, Europe and Asia-Pacific. He will be sharing his experiences, success stories and challenges during this forum and looks forward to learning from the experiences of the other participants.