2017 Fireflies Dialogues
| Event Start Date: 2nd February 2017 | Event End Date: 5th February 2017 | Event Venue: Bangalore |
Greetings from Pipal Tree / Fireflies Intercultural Centre in Bangalore, India!
Pipal Tree cordially invites you to participate in the 2017 Fireflies Dialogues, focusing on Cultural and Spiritual Values for Sustainable Futures. This edition of the Fireflies Dialogues will be held from 2-5 February, 2017 at Fireflies Intercultural Centre in Bangalore, India.
The Fireflies Dialogues happen yearly through Pipal Tree’s Meeting Rivers programme (Bangalore, India) and Dialogues en Humanité (Lyon, France). The Dialogues create opportunities for thinkers, artists, activists, students, journalists, and more to create change towards sustainability through knowledge-sharing, interaction, and participatory processes.
In this year’s theme, Cultural and Spiritual Values for Sustainable Futures, we seek to explore cultural and spiritual values from various traditions that build interactive, nonviolent futures for societies in India and beyond. To learn more about the 2017 topic, please refer to the concept note given below.
As always, we seek to cultivate a diverse group of participants who aim to share and apply the knowledge and inspiration they gain from the Fireflies Dialogues in their personal/professional lives, communities, and beyond to benefit a national and global citizenship.
To register for the Dialogues, please fill out this form by 31 December 2016. As usual, food and lodging will be provided free of cost for this event.
If you know of a person or group of people who would be interested in attending the 2017 Fireflies Dialogues, please share this announcement with them.
If you have any queries regarding the 2017 Fireflies Dialogues, please email Marika Straw at meetingrivers@pipaltree.org.in.
With warm regards,
For the Pipal Tree Team
Siddhartha, Shabin Paul, and Marika Straw
P.S. As we are experiencing a small budget shortfall for this year’s Dialogues, we would welcome voluntary contributions for the costs of the event in any amount. Donating is completely optional and no one will be turned away.
Fireflies Dialogues 2017
Cultural and Spiritual Values for Sustainable Futures
All over the world, xenophobia is creeping in. We have never witnessed as much fear of the ‘other’ as we do today, whether it be in ethnic and cultural conflicts or in the rejection of refugees. Cultural passions for limited and narrow ends are ruling the roost in many contexts. The goals of building towards a shared future are often completely sidetracked in the resulting noise and confusion.
By now we all know that what is important in building collective futures is not only creating robust economies, but also considering the kind of society we want to create and the kind of relations we wish to foster. In India, as in many other countries, the preamble to the Constitution enshrines, with broad brush strokes, the kind of society we aim to create. The Preamble of our Constitution consecrates a number of values that are important to keep in mind as we move forward:
JUSTICE, social, economic and political
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation
We often see the Constitution as a mere legal document concerned with checks and balances, forgetting that it is the fundamental vision of our society. Underlined within is equality, fraternity, the dignity of every individual, and the unity and integrity of the nation within the global community.
These values are not only values for India, but also universal values in an interconnected and interdependent world. Problems related to creating sustainable futures are local and national, but they are also preeminently global. We need to globally gravitate not only to the economic processes that need to be radically altered to fight climate change and promote sustainable growth, but also towards diverse cultural and spiritual values that can serve as the driver of these changes.
The 2017 edition of Fireflies Dialogues, organised by Pipal Tree in the spirit of the global processes of Dialogues and Humanity happening all over the world, will explore liberative and sustainable dimensions of various cultures. Contributions will emphasise the values of the Constitution of India as well as Hindu, Christian, Sufi, Buddhist, Indigenous and secular practices and ideas that foster sustainable futures.
We shall also explore personal and community values, as well as spiritual insights, that contribute towards building dialogue and trust. These values and insights are so important to veer the creative world-building process away from conflictual and consumer values towards one of caring for each other and the planet.
Pipal Tree
Fireflies Intercultural Centre
Dinnepalya, Kaggalipura P.O.
Bangalore – 82 India
Website: www.pipaltree.org.in
www.fireflies.org.in
www.climatesouthasia.org
Phone: +91-80-28432725
Email: meetingrivers@pipaltree.org.in
Facebook Pages: www.facebook.com/pipaltreebangalore
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“Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” – Chief Seattle