
The starting point of CIRDE towards environmental peacebuilding is the encyclical of the holy father, Pope Francis, Laudato Si’. In that encyclical, Pope Francis underlines that every single person on earth is connected by the very fact that we all inhabit the earth, which is our “common home”. He writes of the earth as our sister, who “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her”.
The following statement in Laudato Si’ sums up the engagement of CIRDE: “Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue […] It is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”
CIRDE believes that an engagement on environmental issues to promote peace and dialogue offers a great opportunity for interreligious and ecumenical dialogue. In fact, Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, said that “the present moment offers an opportunity and a grace for restoration, beginning with religion playing a vital role in nurturing greater respect for creation and one another. The concern for the environment has now become a major interreligious preoccupation. […] All of us, irrespective of whichever religion we profess, have a moral and religious responsibility to shape an ethic of care for the Earth, which is our shared home. A common commitment to creation by people of different religious traditions can offer real hope for the future of life on Earth.”
This is the starting point for CIRDE. Together with our stakeholders, we keep exploring possible connector projects on environment between different faiths and religions in Kenya. The training with the youth in 2023 can hereby be seen as a starting point for CIRDE.