Encounters

In a context of mistrust and misconceptions, GINGKO believes in the power of meeting the other.

GINGKO organises and funds a diverse range of encounters for people from MENA and the West, of all faiths and none.

Our encounters aim to build understanding, foster respect, enable collaboration, and nurture friendship.

At the heart of GINGKO’s encounters programme is the Interfaith Fellowship, an ongoing scheme bringing together early-career theology scholars from MENA and the West.

Other encounters have included scriptural reasoning workshops, a series of online discussion groups about the lives of young people in the Arab world a decade after the political upheaval of 2010-12, a dialogue about the representation of the Christmas story in the Qur’an, and the ‘Understanding Islam’ course at the Centre for Christian-Muslim Partnership and Understanding in Cairo.  

From 2015 to 2019, GINGKO organised the New Divan Project, bringing together contemporary poets from MENA and the West in a unique lyrical dialogue to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan.

GINGKO also offers its Grant to those wishing to organise their own encounters.