Tony Blair Faith Foundation
| Registration no. | 1123243 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | London |
|
Budget
|
£2,836,000 |
|
Staff
|
30 |
| Website | www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/ |
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is an interfaith charitable foundation established in May 2008 by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The Foundation was launched in May 2008 in New York at the headquarters of the media group Time Warner. In his speech, Blair outlined the Foundation's aim that "idealism becomes the new realism", and that one of its goals was to "counter extremism in all six leading religions" (i.e., according to the Foundation, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Sikhism). Blair said that, while in office, he feared being exposed as a "nutter" if he had talked about his religious views. Former US president Bill Clinton attended the launch, describing Blair as "a good man as well as a great leader". In an interview with Time magazine, Blair said the Foundation was "how I want to spend the rest of my life".
The foundation lists several goals: "The foundation provides the practical support required to help prevent religious prejudice, conflict and extremism. At school, university and professional level the foundation provides various education programmes. The foundation encourages interfaith initiatives to tackle global poverty and conflict."
The Foundation's basic premises, as listed in their initial mission statement, are that 1) faith is important to many, underpinning their systems of thought, their behaviour and the behaviour of many of the world's progressive movements, and that 2) the great religions share values of respect, justice and compassion. But the statement also recognises that faith can be divisive, too; this is viewed by the Foundation as being based on distortions of faith rather than being intrinsic to it.
The aim of the Foundation is to use the tools of modern communication to "educate, inform and develop understanding" about various faiths, and the relationships between them. It aims to do this in such a way as to address global poverty and conflict.
The Foundation has several projects: Faith and Globalisation Initiative, Face to Faith, Faiths Act (an activist group), and Faith Shorts (for short religious films).
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