Meet the teams making this possible

For decades, Interfaith Partnership has worked to deepen understanding and respect among people of different faiths across the St. Louis region. Its dialogue and prayer groups, youth programs, Interfaith Academy, and community service projects bring neighbors of different traditions into the same room, and keep them coming back. When hate targets any faith community in St. Louis, its cabinet of religious leaders stands up together.

It started with a river. In 2004, Janessa Gans Wilder sat on the banks of the Euphrates weeks after a major battle in Fallujah, struck by how the water kept flowing, bringing life to the desert through all of the destruction around it. That image became the Euphrates Institute, an educational and grassroots peacebuilding organization with chapters across the U.S. and in 15 countries. Its work centers on equipping everyday people to solve hard problems in their own communities and to act from a sense of shared humanity.

For 25 years, photographer Daniel Epstein has traveled to 30 countries, photographing 500 people and asking each one about their spiritual journey. With curator Rev. Gina Alicea, he turned that work into Seeing the Other, a traveling exhibition and educational program that has appeared at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and the Muhammad Ali Center. Daniel and Gina will be on campus throughout the conference, and their exhibition opens on the first night.