For a week now, PeaceNext’s over 500 members have already been commenting, posting, organizing and connecting with each other.

A few of the highlights include:

• Groups: 29 Groups from the Portland-Vancouver Friends of the Parliament to the Food, Water and Climate Action Group.
• Blogs: Olivia Watts’ open-armed welcome to Melbourne.
• Blogs: Beth Blissman’s reunion with a fellow Oberlin alum.
• Photos: 400 member-uploaded photos, most of the Parliament-in-progress.
• Videos: Almost 60 videos, many in webcast format, providing connection and eyewitness accounts of the Parliament in progress.
• Above all our 586 members, many of whom have also added their location to our interactive map.

And this is just the beginning.  To connect and experience the digital voice of the interreligious movement, click here.

Social Networks have become a major phenomenon this decade, picking up hundreds of millions of users around the world.  During the development of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia, our planning Council has made use of a variety of social networks to spread the word about the importance of interreligious work.  Here’s how you can connect up:

• If you only join one online network, it should be PeaceNext.  Specially built for the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, PeaceNext is the premiere online site for the interreligious movement.  We’ve added over 500 members in the last week!  To join up for free, click here.
• There are also two Facebook entities associated with the Parliament.  Our Facebook Group was created specifically for the Melbourne Parliament and already includes more than 3500 members sharing photos, videos, conversation and more.  We also maintain a Facebook Fan Page for the Council with over 1000 members and access to our deep archives of photos and videos from prior events.  We have also recently created a Myspace Group.
• Last but not least, we invite you to Follow PWR2009 on Twitter for timely, spontaneous, and bite-sized updates on all things interreligious.

We’ve received some wonderful photos from Pre-Parliament Events recently held in Vancouver and Monterrey.

To see pictures from Vancouver, click here.

To see pictures from Monterrey, click here.

Many of our other Pre-Parliament Events have been documented with photos, video and more.  To see a list of past Pre-Parliament Events, click here. If you want to find out what events will be happening in the future near you, click here.

A long time ago in August 2008 the Parliament of Religions must have seemed a distant event. That didn’t stop the School of Bhagavad Gita from hosting a Pre-Parliament Event in Kerala, India.  A variety of speakers came together to discuss “Religion, Gandhiji, Politics and Aesthetics.”

To see photos taken at this event, click here.

To read a letter about the event from the President of India, click here.

For more information on the Kerala Pre-Parliament Event, click here.