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Project to seek inter-religious ambassadors started
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-26 13:34

LOS ANGELES -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair kicked off here on Thursday a program to search for 30 young adults from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom to serve as inter-religious ambassadors.

These "Faiths Act Fellows" will spend their first two months in an "intensive initiative" including field work with primary health partners fighting deaths from malaria in Africa, Blair said during a debate on faith and combating poverty in Los Angeles.

They will then return to their home nations for eight months, attempting to mobilize young people of faith to raise awareness and resources to promote the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, mainly focusing on the attempt to reduce deaths from malaria, according to Blair.

Blair was here to participate in a panel discussion on the positive contributions young people of all faiths are making and can make toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which include reducing poverty and fighting diseases in the world's poorest countries.

"As change makers for current and future generations, young people have the opportunity to establish a new vision of inter-religious interaction that places protecting the welfare of the world's poorest at its center," Blair said.

The project was organized by Blair's Faith Foundation, which he formed earlier this year in an attempt to promote respect and understanding among the major religions.