The fifth Parliament of the World’s Religions was held in Melbourne, Australia, on December 3-9, 2009.  The theme for the event is “Make a World of Difference:  Hearing each other, Healing the earth” — an essential focus for our time. 8,000 people will gather from the world’s religious and spiritual communities to learn from and about each other and to engage critical issues facing humankind.

Dropping Knowledge International (DKI) and  Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions (CPWR) are together offering a way to engage the global community in a new global conversation for the sake of the common good.  This campaign lifted up the power of gathering knowledge from the global community through a well-designed ‘call and response’ process. It brings to the forefront the power of religion and spirituality to motivate communities to take action on behalf of the whole of humanity.

The primary project goal is to develop a self-sustaining question-based learning process that utilizes the power of religion and spirituality as a motivator enabling communities to become action-oriented forces for the “common good.”  The focus was on identifying and addressing key questions important to the Parliament community, to Partner Cities around the world, and to the human communities least heard from, and to do this by creating a working partnership between DKI and CPWR.

Additional goals for the CPWR-DKI partnership provide the opportunity to:

• Bring faith/spiritual/religious perspectives into global public dialogue and action via top questions important to the global public.

• Support intra- and inter-faith dialogue about these top questions within the global community and religious and spiritual communities around the world.

• Develop material for a body of thinking on each question, which can be directed to influence the thinking of policy and advocacy groups working on the question.

• Support opportunities for individuals/organizations interested in the same questions to become aware of each other.

• Showcase the types of questions, thinking and actions that emerge from DKI-designed Question Campaigns

• Broaden the participation of those engaged in the work of CPWR.

• Help clarify questions and commitments important to individuals and groups in the Parliament community.

• Create links between faith perspectives, organizations, and civic action to address top questions of the Parliament community and Partner Cities.

For more information on the 2009 Parliament visit Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions