Other Projects in the Past Several Years

ACRP carried out its project in collaboration with RfP International and RfP Nepal from May 2015 to provide immediate survival relief and temporary shelters to villagers badly affected by the Nepal April-May 2015 earthquake. Since 2017 thereafter, ACRP extended its assistance in improving villagers’ living condition by building temporary houses and giving vocational training for the housewives in those villages.

On September 2017, the Secretaries-General both of RfP International and ACRP released an urgent joint appeal for members of the RfP network to respect the inviolable human dignity and actively protect all vulnerable people in the Rakhine state, calling for cessation of violence in the region. In collaboration with RfP Bangladesh, in the meantime, RfP families have acted quickly in raising funds to bring humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees who fled from their homeland in Myanmar to Bangladesh.

Such national chapters of ACRP as Australia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines and Sri Lanka among others are very concerned with an issue of the protection of children’s rights. They have been engaged in advocacy programs and carry out national projects in their respective countries.

The protection of the environment including climate change is another issue, with which quite a few national chapters of ACRP are so concerned. Such national chapters as Australia, China, Japan, Mongolia and Myanmar among others carried out their respective programs/projects. In particular, RfP Japan has been carried out an impressive afforestation project in cooperation with the Saitama prefectural and Tokorozawa City governments.

Some of the ACRP national chapters such as Australia, Bangladesh, Philippines and Thailand joined their national programs, celebrating UN International Days, which include the UN Interfaith Harmony Day and the UN International Day of Peace. ACRP attaches its great importance to the partnerships with UN agencies, inter-governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations, etc. The national chapters of ACRP are an effective apparatus for partnership building.

In terms of ACRP’s partnership with governmental authorities, it can be noted that ‘Religions for Peace Advisory Forum on National Reconciliation and Peace’ was convened three times in Myanmar. In these fora, not only religious representatives but also governmental representative met face to face and carried out very fruitful consultations for reconciliation and peace in their country.

ACRP is proud of pointing out that the ACRP youth members, belonging to the Asia and Pacific Interfaith Youth Network (APIYN), have organized ‘APIYN Youth Peace Camp’, in Seoul, Republic of Korea in 2014, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2015, in Manila, the Philippines in 2016, In Jakarta, Indonesia in 2017, in Yangon, Myanmar in 2018 and again in Manila, the Philippines in 2019. In these Camps, a large number of young people in the faith communities in Asia-Pacific region became committed to challenges our region face.