DESCRIPTION OF THE RELIGIOUS SITE
DESCRIPTION Coexister is an interreligious movement with 45 local groups in 33 French cities (10 more groups are being created at the moment) and is also present in 7 European cities (in Germany, Belgium, Swizerland, and in the UK). It organises conferences, events, dialogues about religion, secularism, and interreligious discussions. The volunteers of Coexister organise many events in secondary and high schools and among young people, to promote the idea of "living together". Volunteers in the organisation are between 15 and 35 years old.
HISTORICAL RELEVANCE The organisation was created in 2009 after some important conflicts that took place between Isreal and Palestine in the area of "Gare du Nord" in Paris. After these events, religious leaders called for an interreligion prayer. At the end of the gathering, Samuel Grzybowski, a 16-year-old Christian suggests the creation of an interreligious group for young people. The organisation has more than 2000 members, from 15 to 35 years old.
INTER-RELIGIOUS RELEVANCE One of the main goals of Coexister is the organisation of interventions in secondary and high schools to make students aware of the necessity to respect all religions and non-believers, and to peacefully live together while having a dialogue. These interventions are generally led by 3 or 4 volunteers, from different religions and non-believers. The organisation also organises activities which lead to interreligious dialogues such as meals, visits of exhibitions and rallies about social topics. Coexister also leads new experiences, such as an interreligious house-share, where a Catholic, a Muslim and a Jew share their daily lives and have to make their religious traditions cohabit. They promote the "Active Coexistence".
They promote a 3-step planning:
1) Dialogue: dialogue is essential to know each other. Each local group organises debates, visites, conferences, shared meals, movie nights.
2) Solidarity: it is about going beyond dialogue by acting together to help others in society (fund-rising, collection of clothes and toys, actions for the homeless, orphans etc).
3) Awareness: allows people to become agents of Active Coexistence. Volunteers can be trained to learn how to organise activities and events among young people to share the message of "coexistence"
RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE Catholicism, Judaism and Islam are the three main religions present in France. With a rising number of migrants, and religious conflicts in France and all over the world, Coexister gathers the three main religions in France to allow a dialogue and interreligious activities. With the current context, this kind of gathering is more and more important, and allows people from everywhere in France to be aware of the need of this cooperation.
HOW TO USE WITH THE STUDENTS Since Coexsiter works among young people and especially in schools, a direct visit in one of the local organisation would be great to organise debates, discussions and activities. If not possible, the visit of the website is very interesting (unfortunately in French only, but the teach may use the British version of the group??) and can lead to very interesting discussions among the students.
CONNECTION WITH OTHER RELIGIOUS SITES
REFERENCE TO THE GUIDELINE
MEDIA RESOURCES
VIDEOS
LINKS