Over 30 senior leaders of different faith communities from MENA and the European countries, together with experts on migration, held two days of intensive conversation about mass migration in MENA and its impact in EU regions. The key focus was understanding and collaboration on urgent needs with regards to migration and patterns of migration movements. This event was co-sponsored by the European Council of Religious Leaders.
Recommendations from the conference included: working with other stakeholders engaged in migration issues to develop guidelines and multi-level strategies to deal with the root causes and symptoms of migration – based on shared moral and spiritual goals such as creating harmonious societies; carrying out an audit/assessment of existing media capacity and capabilities within the network, in order to highlight positive stories or religious co-operation and action; improving preaching and teaching within religious communities on migration and hospitality; and understanding better, and sharing with others, the needs of our own communities.
It was unanimously agreed that an interim working group will be established to map out future strategies of collaboration in advance of a major meeting in August 2019.
