Director of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies Jordan, Renee Hattar, was a speaker at the Breakout Session of the International LKLB Conference, November 14, 2023.
Jakarta, LKLB News – Teachers are the front line for instilling character and moral education in children as the next generation. That is why a teacher is required not only to possess broad knowledge and insight but also the strength to remain unaffected by conflicts of religious differences happening around them.
To prevent teachers from being influenced by extremism, Jordan created the Teachers of Tomorrow (ToT) program. Teachers are trained to teach human values, promote religious freedom, and protect human rights.
This was conveyed by the Director of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies Jordan, Renee Hattar, during a panel discussion titled “Teachers of Tomorrow: Preventing Violent Extremism Among Teachers in Jordan.” The session was part of the International Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy Conference organized by the Ministry of Law and Human Rights in collaboration with the Leimena Institute on November 14, 2023.
Renee explained that teachers, as agents of change, hold a significant role, yet like anyone else, they can be influenced by the situations surrounding them. When surrounded by conflict, teachers can easily be swept along, including by the current situation in Gaza.
“Jordan itself is surrounded by war. We are surrounded by war in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine. So Jordan is truly a complicated region. With all these complexities in recent years, extremism has been on the rise,” said Renee.
According to Renee, people often talk about moderate Islam and extremist Islam, but in reality, there is only one Islam. “If there is something extreme, it is their own way of thinking,” she stated.
Renee explained that her institution runs the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) project to counter hardline extremism among teachers in Jordan through the ToT program.
“So, we have many objectives we want to achieve in this project, such as enhancing teachers’ leadership capacity, promoting religious freedom, protecting human rights, advancing good governance, and also instilling universal values to encourage respect for differences,” Renee explained.
Through the ToT program under the Preventing Violent Extremism project, Renee seeks to change teaching methodologies by integrating social and emotional learning, as well as the arts as creative and non-violent methods.
So far, the PVE project has been carried out through 40 workshops involving at least 550 teachers in Jordan. “Other teachers have said, this project is the future of Jordan,” said Renee.
The Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) was founded in 1994 in Amman, Jordan, as a non-profit and non-governmental organization under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. RIIFS provides a space for interdisciplinary studies on intercultural and interfaith issues, aiming to ease tensions and promote peace regionally and globally.
Participants of the Breakout Session “Teachers of Tomorrow” at the International LKLB Conference.
Mainstreaming CCRL
In line with this, the Executive Director of the Leimena Institute stated that Indonesia, through the Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy (CCRL) program organized by the Leimena Institute with at least 20 partners, also seeks to mainstream religious literacy grounded in respect for human dignity. This is essential as social capital for a peaceful and inclusive society.
“The CCRL program in Indonesia has graduated nearly 6,000 teachers from 34 provinces across Indonesia,” he said.
Matius noted that the CCRL program helps ensure that efforts to build interreligious harmony are not merely normative but can truly be applied within society.
“I often participate in interfaith dialogues that are limited to policymakers or leaders, but the CCRL program is different because it seeks to penetrate the grassroots, reaching teachers and even students who are rarely touched by interfaith programs,” said Matius.
Matius explained that the International CCRL Conference held in Jakarta on November 13–14, 2023, was part of the CCRL program, which brought together alumni teachers of CCRL training and Leimena Institute partners from within and outside the country. The event also featured 30 world-renowned speakers, including Indonesia’s Minister of Law and Human Rights (Menkumham RI) Yasonna, the Vice President of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Muhammadou M.O. Kah, Indonesia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, WTO, and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, Achsanul Habib, and ASEAN Deputy Secretary-General for the Political-Security Community, Robert Matheus Michael Tene.