Practicing Hope

"In a time of intersecting crises — conflict, climate disruption, displacement, and growing inequality — women and girls are often called upon to carry both material and emotional burdens of survival and care. While much policy attention focuses on structural solutions, far less attention is given to the inner capacities that sustain collective action for justice. This gap becomes especially visible where gender justice work is undermined by backlash, burnout, shrinking civic space, and the erosion of trust and legitimacy needed to carry policy commitments forward."

March 12, 2026 - The Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement (CEIE) with the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities and Episcopal Relief & Development is having an interactive side event in New York City.: Practicing Hope: Inner Capacities for Gender Justice in Times of Crisis.

"Explore hope as a learnable inner capacity that strengthens women’s leadership and collective action for gender equality in contexts of crisis and instability. Drawing on the Inner Development Goals, peace psychology research, and faith-based development practice, the session integrates brief inputs with an arts-based participatory experience led by sound artist Andromeda Turre."

"Participants will engage in small-group dialogue to identify how cultivating hope supports collective agency, legitimacy, and sustained action for gender justice and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, particularly in contexts of backlash and implementation gaps." Learn more and RSVP here

"This interactive side event explores hope as a learnable and collective capacity for advancing gender equality, drawing on emerging research, faith-based development practice, and the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) guide. Rather than treating hope as passive optimism, the session frames hope as a collective, political capacity rooted in meaning-making, relationship, and agency — enabling sustained leadership and resistance in the face of structural injustice."

"The event combines short inputs from practitioners and researchers with a participatory artistic experience led by singer and sound artist Andromeda Turre, whose Echoes of Hope project gathers spoken reflections on hope from communities worldwide and weaves them into an evolving sound archive."

"Participants will engage in small-group dialogue (in triads or groups of four), using principles from Gestalt and dialogical learning, as a method of generating policy-relevant learning by surfacing patterns of burnout, hope, and collective agency often missed in formal data, while reflecting on how hope is cultivated in their own contexts of gender justice work."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pikgy68z2_Y

This event is co-organized by: 

• Andromeda Turre

• Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation

• Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement, Seattle University

• Episcopal Relief & Development

• Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities

"The Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement (CEIE) at Seattle University is rooted in a Jesuit, Catholic commitment to ecumenical and interreligious engagement, spiritual and indigenous pathways, and cultural wisdom. At CEIE, we Engage, Learn, Grow, and Lead... CEIE is rooted in religious and spiritual depth expressed through the ages. In the wake of violence, loss, and deep social strain experienced across communities around the world, our work is to build bridges and provide resources that respond to conflict by integrating the depth of our past for a shared future."

Earlier this year, on January 28, 2026, Seattle University Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement (CEIE) and St. James Cathedral Pastoral Outreach Center co-hosted a special ecumenical worship event: “Light from Light for Light” celebrating our call to be people of light in the world. This was in celebration of the 2026 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,