CENTRE FOR RESPECT AND UNDERSTANDING
The Centre for Respect & Understanding is established within the Cordia Educational Institutes in Sanghol, a village of archaeological and historical significance located in Punjab. Sanghol's rich cultural heritage reaches back from the late Harappan era and the Kushan period to Mughal and Sikh history. The Cordia Educational Institutes owes its creation to the drive and vision of Lord Diljit Rana, Baron of Malone, who is Member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom and Honorary Consul for India to Northern Ireland. Committed to transforming the state of rural education at his birthplace in Sanghol, Punjab, Lord Rana established a non-profit education campus, Cordia Educational Institutes. It was inaugurated by former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in 2006. Stressing advancement of girls and women and promoting rural empowerment, the education campus comprises a senior secondary public school, multi-disciplinary colleges and vocational centres, with the vision of creating access to quality education and diverse professional opportunities for rural youth, particularly for women, in Sanghol and neighboring regions.
Established within the Cordia Educational Institutes, the genesis of the Centre for Respect & Understanding lies in the creation of the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding. The Commission sought to explore initiatives to promote mutual respect and understanding among all communities. The Report of the Commission, 'Civil Paths to Peace', was presented and approved by 54 heads of Commonwealth countries from across the world in 2007. The Report observed that the importance of respect and understanding lies partly in their intrinsic value - they are indispensable parts of good living in peace and harmony with one another - and partly in their contribution to restraining and removing group-based violence and hostility that have become pernicious features of the contemporary world. Cultivated disrespect of target groups, and engineered misunderstanding of the ways of the world, are integral to the process of instigating and sustaining violence. This underscores the need for responses to extend beyond policing criminal activities towards exploring a plethora of creative civil engagements including social, economic, cultural and political initiatives that can confront and defeat the appeal for violence and militarization of the mind.
The pursuit of transforming people's minds urges a deep understanding of the wealth of social differences that make individual human beings richly diverse in distinct ways, rather than being set up on opposite sides of rigid binaries of 'us' and 'them', across divisions of religion, gender, nationality, class, among others. It is one of the great insights of the Report that we must dedicate ourselves to cherishing and nourishing the 'multiple identities' to which we are heir through the richness of our human heritage, away from the rigidities and aridity of 'singular identities' which may be thrust upon us.
The Report highlights that the institutional changes needed for pursuing civil paths to peace call for clarity of thought, with an equal emphasis on demanding organised policies, programmes and initiatives with adequate reach. It alludes to the role of economic inequalities, social humiliations and political disenfranchisement in generating disrespect and hostility, along with past and present deprivations. It emphasises the social rewards of working towards mutual respect and fuller understanding to counter such phenomena.
There has also been a deplorable coarsening of public discourse which cannot go unchallenged in a civil society.
The Centre for Respect & Understanding was born as a pioneering initiative that draws its title from the Report. It will incubate innovative ideas to serve society by fostering respect and understanding in diverse ways, and promote their wide social ownership.
Four projects that CRU currently seeks to initiate in collaboration with partners and supporters include:
— Creating a public platform to project instances of harmony and mutual respect in India across divisions of gender, religion, language, region, citizenship, class and ethnicity, to project positive and inclusive narratives that inspire a culture of mutually respectful communities and celebration of multiple identities.
— Supporting opportunities in every state for creative social engagement for the vast numbers of government officials retiring every month, to serve with existing or planned social sector and grassroots initiatives or with voluntary organisations.
— Supporting community-based pilot projects for the inclusion and empowerment of women and girls and documenting effective strategies and policies.
— Creating resources such as publications, audio-visual and online material to advance awareness of citizens towards collective values, goals and responsibilities.
Other areas of engagement will emerge as CRU grows in partnership. CRU looks forward to the contribution of a :widening circle of friends of the Centre, who will support and advise the Centre, as it serves our society through fostering respect and understanding.
Contact: Kamalesh Sharma
Email: cru@cordia.edu.in | Phone: +91-9129977928
Crowd Funding Campaign
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The Cordia Advantage
Empowerment of the Youth through equal opportunity in academic achievement and overall personality and leadership development, inculcating in them entrepreneurship skills with quality education and vocational training courses.
The Trust
Lord Rana Foundation Trust was established in 1996 with the objectives to channel donations to various social and educational initiatives in Northern Ireland and India and in particular to promote diversity and understanding between different cultures. The Trust has supported a broad range of charities in Northern Ireland and is promoting education and economic initiatives in India.
Reach us at:
Cordia Group of Institutes
Chandigarh-Ludhiana Highway, VPO, Sanghol (Uchha Pind)
Teh : Khamanon, Distt : Fatehgarh Sahib, PIN : 140802
✆ :+91 8727045001 | | ✉: info@cordia.edu.in