October 2022 – Verena and Janna are here!

We are Verena and Janna from Germany and we just happily started our internship at URI MENA at the beginning of October! As being a part of URI MENA for the next three months, we would like to tell you a little about ourselves:

My name is Janna and besides the intern, I am currently living and studying in Cologne to do my master’s degree in intercultural communication and education. Since participating in international exchange programs when I was at school, I am interested in transcultural exchanges and learning about our globalised societies. Being raised with Christian values, equality for all human beings is an important value to me. Due to my interest in different spiritualities and religions, I believe in their importance and peacebuilding capacity. For that reason, I am thankful to learn from such a huge interfaith network and get the possibility to support the work from URI MENA.

My name is Verena and I have just completed my master´s degree in applied ethics and conflict management. After I graduated it was my wish to do voluntary work in a civil society organization in another country to learn about a new context, get experiences in the sector and see inspiring practical work. I am highly interested in the variety of different religious traditions, spiritual practice, and faith groups as I was studying religious studies in my bachelor programme. During the next three months I would like to learn more about the work and approaches of the grassroot initiatives of the URI network. Working towards peace and mutual understanding through joint engagement for environmental protection, social justice, human rights and gender equality fascinates me and I am happy to be part of it during my internship.