Aman Shanti Handicrafts Exhibition

Interested in building Hindu-Muslim peace? It's now as easy as buying a table cover!

On 7th and 8th September 2007, Hindu & Muslim women from the Aman Shanti Community will display handbags, purses, table covers, jewelry, cellphone covers, hot pot holders, flowers and greeting cards as part of their handicrafts exhibition to build peace between their communities.

The Aman Shanti Community is an initiative of the Henry Martyn Institute: International Centre For Research, Interfaith Relations And Reconciliation (HMI), a non-profit organization promoting reconciliation between people of different faiths and cultures. The institute encourages the study of religions and practical grassroots involvement to improve relationships between divided groups and communities.

HMI achieves its goals through a variety of academic programs involving scholars, students and social activists at the local, national and international level; and through praxis projects that are community-based with strong grassroots involvement.

In 1990, in the wake of communal rioting in the Old City of Hyderabad, HMI facilitated the establishment of the Aman Shanti Forum, a people's movement consisting of like-minded socially responsible citizens from different religious backgrounds. The forum aimed at promoting peace through reconciliation and healing processes. Subsequently, HMI laid the foundations to its grassroots community development work in 1996 in Sultan Shahi, the most sensitive area of violence in the Old City and the worst affected area during the 1990 communal violence.

Later HMI started similar projects in 2000 and 2003 in Shankarnagar and Chandrayangutta. These projects are called the Aman Shanti Community Centres. (Aman is an Arabic or Urdu word, which means Peace, and Shanti means Peace in Hindi or Telugu.) These centers were established in order to promote HMI's commitment to addressing the community's economic, social, cultural and political needs, as an essential part of the process of building sustainable peace.

In these centers, HMI conducts a range of programs that help women and men from Hindu and Muslim backgrounds in the grassroots work.

Please contact 2401-4231/2401-4258 for further details.