OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership

OMNIA's mission is to equip religious leaders and people of faith to counter religious extremism and religion-based oppression, domination and violence. It does so by building Interfaith Peacemaker Teams of local leaders who know how to collaborate across religious and other identity markers, to build power, and to act effectively on community issues that arise from the ground. Our theory of change is that when there are a large number of IPTs active in a community there will come a tipping point, when the cultural narratives that affirm extremism will give way to cultural narratives that affirm pluralism. Our Interfaith Peacemaker Team trainings show men, women, and young adults how to build peace within communities that exhibit religious oppression, domination and violence. These teams, composed of religious leaders and people of faith, begin by having honest and open conversations with people in their communities about their day-to-day questions, struggles and aspirations. Equipped to build capacity and power for collaborative and effective action, they then engage the community in tackling small-sliver issues that are urgent, relevant and winnable. Small victories lead to building greater power, and thereby, to larger victories. As they win hearts and minds to work collaboratively, they reduce the space available for extremist groups to recruit and grow. As of March 2020, over 2,300 religious leaders and people of faith have received Basic Training. We, and they, have built 71 IPTeams in Nigeria, 20 in Sri Lanka, and 15 in Bangladesh.