Project Aladdin and three major Bahraini institutions to forge partnerships to promote tolerance and intercultural rapprochement

In November 2021, Project Aladdin’s delegation held separate meetings with the leadership of the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence, the think-tank Derasat and Bahrain’s Higher Education Council to discuss joint programs on tolerance education and academic cooperation. 

Project Aladdin’s Leah Pisar, Eric de Rothschild and Abe Radkin visited the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence and were greeted by Dr. Sheikh Khalid Bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Chairman of the board of trustees, and Deputy Chairs Samir Al-Baharna and Betsy Mathieson. The delegation met with three young women ambassadors of the center, who spoke compellingly about their personal and professional experience. 

The two organizations agreed to work together to organize a conference in 2022 on strategies for promoting tolerance in religious institutions and training programs for young theologians to learn about the religion of the Other. 

Project Aladdin’s delegation also met with the leadership of Derasat, Bahrain’s leading think-tank. The delegation discussed with the Chairman of Derasat’s board of trustees, Sheikh Abdulla bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, and the institute’s senior executives, about the situation in the region following the Abraham Accords, and ways in which a “warm peace” in the region could promote intercultural peace and friendship even beyond the Middle East. 

Project Aladdin and Derasat agreed to work together to produce content that will promote intercultural relations in the form of books, online resources, and documentaries. Project Aladdin and Derasat decided to jointly organize a conference in Manama in 2022 on the history and the future of relations between Jews and Muslims. 

In a separate meeting with Sheikha Dr. Rana bint Isa Al Khalifa, Secretary-General of Bahrain’s Higher Education Council, the two sides agreed to work on a Winter university program that will bring to Manama students from Arab, Israeli, European and American universities to study the social dimensions of climate change. 

Another topic discussed with the Secretary-General of the Higher Education Council was the organization of a conference in partnership with several Bahraini universities in 2022 to explore how the teaching of the lessons of History could promote tolerance.