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My name is Radia and I defined myself as a Mediterranean, a junction of different identities. The region represents a crossroads of beliefs, territories, cultures and histories. I have Moroccan, Lebanese and Palestinian roots and I am the happy owner of a French and Moroccan passport. I am a sunni Muslim with chia, liberal, orthodox, soufi family members. I grew up South (Morocco, 12 years), North (France, 15 years) and East (Tel Aviv, 1 year).

Radia, Floriane, Marie and Maud visiting Sydney Australia

I have been involved in interfaith dialogue and cooperation for 8 years in an organization called Coexister, which is a youth-led interfaith movement that gathers 2000 members. That’s where I met Floriane, Marie and Maud in 2014. I didn’t know at that moment that I would live this unexpected adventure with them. In 2021, we were selected together to be the 5th team of the InterFaith Tour Program.

Our mission was to leave France on October 2021, to travel together for 10 months, to study 15 countries and meet with interfaith and peace activists all around the world. Our objectives were to document peace and contribute to research, to create inspirational content for social medias, to extract the best practices and share them to educators. I couldn’t realize the  immense luck I had to be able to participate to this project.

We left on October 15 for Brazil where we studied afro-descent communities. After that, we went to Mexico, United States, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Rwanda, Israel and Palestine, Turkey, Indonesia before we arrived in Australia. We arrived in Melbourne on June 11 and left from Sydney on July 5. We had amazing 21 interviews with faith leaders, interfaith ministers, justice activists and champlains! We discovered a country that is still challenged by its diversity but at the same trying to embrace this diversity. Just in the region of Melbourne, there are more than 50 interfaith organizations!

I always been passionate about finding new and innovative ways to build peace by using all the tools and resources we have, and after 9 months of travelling and meeting with interfaith activists, I’m convinced interfaith cooperation not only is a tool to build peace, but needs to be used in conflict prevention and resolution, systematically. Peace is a process and needs to be learned, in tribute to all the people we met, I am going to do everything to do so their teachings are being shared all around me.

Radia Bakkouch
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Instagram : @interfaithtour
Facebook : @iftour
Website : www.interfaithtour.com