Inter-Faith Dialogue and Humanitarian Principles: Bridging Traditions for Compassionate Action.

About This Event

The event will feature an open morning round-table discussion, followed by a smaller afternoon brainstorm on the network’s feasibility and design.

South and Southeast Asia are among the most religiously diverse regions in the world — home to the birthplaces of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism, and to vast communities of Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of countless indigenous traditions. Yet this diversity, which is a source of cultural richness, shared meaning, and acts as an integrating force, is under significant pressure, asking us to take action and collaborate.

This founding event will bring together scholars and practitioners to explore the establishment of a peer network of universities and institutions across South and Southeast Asia, dedicated to interfaith dialogue and research on issues that matter most to communities in the region — including environmental and social ethics, governance, education, humanitarianism, and peacebuilding.

Details:

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Venue: Hotel Tibet International, Boudha

The day will be structured in two parts:

• Morning: Open round-table dialogue
• Afternoon: Smaller working session on the network’s feasibility and design

This initiative aligns with the guidance of Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on extending RYI’s education further into the world. It follows a previous collaboration with the ICRC on International Humanitarian Law and is supported by James Madison University’s Department of Philosophy and Religion and the Sahle O Project (Quebec, Canada).

Meet the conveners

The People Behind This Initiative

Dr. Diane Denis

Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Nepal

Diane Denis, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Rangjung Yeshe Institute (Kathmandu University) and a specialist in Buddhist ethics, contemplative education, and humanitarian engagement in contexts of conflict. Her work bridges classical Buddhist philosophy with contemporary issues such as armed conflict, resilience, and the ethical foundations of international humanitarian law. She has participated in multiple International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) conferences exploring dialogue between Buddhism, humanitarian principles, and peacebuilding practices in Asia. A long-time educator and interfaith speaker, Denis has contributed to dialogues involving Buddhism, Christianity, Earth-based spiritual traditions, and Sufism, with a particular focus on ethics, suffering, and responsibility in times of violence and displacement. She is also the founder of the Sahle O Project, an international women’s education initiative active in Tibet, India, Nepal, and Canada. Through teaching, research, and field-based engagement, her work supports compassionate responses to human suffering and fosters cross-cultural and interreligious understanding.

Dr. Bahrul Hayat

Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta

Dr. Bahrul Hayat, Ph.D., is an Indonesian academic, psychometrician, and senior public administrator with more than three decades of experience in education, religious affairs, and public policy. He is widely recognized for his contributions to bureaucratic reform, religious education, and interfaith dialogue in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1992 and his M.A. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1989. Before serving as Secretary General of Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, he held senior positions in the Ministry of Education and Culture, where he helped lead reforms in educational assessment, curriculum development, teacher policy, and quality assurance. As Secretary General from 2006 to 2014, he led major institutional reforms that strengthened financial governance, improved Hajj services, modernized recruitment systems, and expanded programs promoting interreligious harmony. In cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he initiated and led several international interfaith initiatives, including the Asia-Pacific Interfaith Conference, the Asia-EU Interfaith Conference, and an interfaith scholarship program for members of think tanks affiliated with the European Parliament. He also served as Chair of the U.S.-Indonesia Interfaith Forum from 2014 to 2017. Dr. Hayat currently lectures at the Faculty of Psychology at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta and was part of the preparatory team and later served as Vice Rector for Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII). His policy work has focused on strengthening protections for religious minorities, promoting non-discrimination, and advancing equal citizenship within constitutional frameworks.

Dr. Christina Kilby

James Madison University, USA

Dr. Christina Kilby is Associate Professor of Religion and Executive Director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery (CISR) at James Madison University in the United States, where she leads collaborations between JMU faculty and students, donors, and international partners in the humanitarian and public service sectors. Dr. Kilby is a specialist in Buddhist Studies, focusing on religion’s intersection with conflict, displacement, humanitarian principles, and human security. Her publications include studies of Tibetan literature, Buddhist ethics, refugee studies, and international humanitarian law. She was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship as well as numerous grants for research, language study, and non-profit partnerships. She has also consulted for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) initiative on “The Interface Between Buddhism and International Humanitarian Law: Reducing Suffering During Armed Conflict” and chaired a working group on internal displacement for the ICRC Office of Global Affairs, Asia Region. Her current research project, The Love and War Project, investigates how diverse forms of love operate in post-conflict communities to promote healing and recovery.

Rohan Edrisinha

Sri Lanka

Rohan Edrisinha was a Senior Political Officer and Constitutional Advisor to the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) of the United Nations, New York, from 2016 to 2023. He served as the constitutional advisor to the United Nations in Nepal and the head of UNDP’s Constitution Support Programme (SPCBN) from 2011 to 2014. He has law degrees from the University of Colombo and the University of California, Berkeley, and a postgraduate Diploma in Buddhist Studies from the University of Kelaniya. He taught at the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, from 1986 to 2011, the Faculty of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in 1995, and was a visiting fellow at the Harvard Divinity School (2005) and the University of Toronto (2009). He was a founder Director and Head of the Legal and Constitutional Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), Sri Lanka, from 1996 to 2010. He was a constitutional consultant to the Forum of Federations and an advisor to the Sri Lankan peace negotiations between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE in 2001–03. Following his return to Sri Lanka in 2024, he was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Colombo and the Standing Legal Advisor to the Anglican Bishop of Colombo. He will complete a four-year online course in Theology (Education for Ministry) conducted by the University of the South (Sewanee) in July 2026.

Atty. Caroline Vandenabeele

Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Nepal

Caroline Vandenabeele has spent thirty years working across South and Southeast Asia—including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines (Mindanao), Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Iraq, and beyond—at the intersection of humanitarian response, peacebuilding, and institutional leadership. Much of that work has been in contexts of religious tension and conflict, engaging Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian communities on some of the hardest questions of coexistence, recovery, and moving forward across difference. A lawyer by training (KU Leuven, Belgium, 1991) and a student of Buddhist philosophy, she is undertaking graduate studies at Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, where her research explores what contemplative ethics has to offer the hardest questions in humanitarian law and practice. The Inter-Faith Dialogue Network grows directly from that work—and from a conviction built over three decades in the field: that the region’s faith traditions are not peripheral to its crises, but central to how communities understand and recover from them.

Join the Dialogue

Scholars, practitioners, and institutional leaders from across South and Southeast Asia are warmly invited to attend. To register for this event, please click the button below.

For questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at admin@ryi.org