Awarding a shared vision of Europe
A scheme to recognise the role of Muslims in Europe has won a prestigious award.
The British Council’s Our Shared Europe project has been honoured with the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) Building Bridges Award for the way it seeks to find common ground and build shared values and perspectives between different ethnic and religious groups.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is a previous winner for his work developing interfaith relationships.
Dr Anas Al-Shaikh-Ali, Chairman of AMSS, said: ‘We are pleased to present our 2009 Building Bridges Award jointly to the British Council ‘Our Shared Europe’ project, and to the 1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in our World.
‘Today's socio-political climate is marked by increased divisions along ethnic and religious lines. This is seen internally in Europe among communities and externally between Western societies and Muslim societies. This situation creates problems for citizenship in humanity. Both the British Council and 1001 Inventions projects are playing an admirable and significant role in building bridges at a time when such endeavours have become ever more difficult and challenging.’
Our Shared Europe focuses on recognising the integral role Muslims have in Europe’s past, present and future. The project is the British Council’s response to one of the major cultural challenges facing Europe today – the growing mutual mistrust between Muslim communities and the wider European society.
Martin Davidson, Chief Executive of the British Council, added: ‘The British Council is proud and delighted to receive the Association of Muslim Social Scientists’ prestigious Building Bridges Award for our work in bringing communities together worldwide. The work we do in exploring inter-cultural differences with communities in the UK and overseas is also important to developing a better understanding of how we can create stronger bonds between communities here in the UK. We look forward to working together with the Association of Muslim Social Scientists and other groups to create more cohesive communities.’
