Mennonite
Central
Committee

MCC in Iran

Qom, Iran

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In the hostile climate that exists between the United States and Iran and Canada and Iran, MCC promotes friendship and understanding through disaster response, a student exchange program, learning tours and face-to-face conversations about the role of religion in peacebuilding.

As part of an exchange program designed to provide opportunities for dialogue and friendship, persons from the United States and Canada study Islam and the Persian language in Qom, Iran, and Iranians study philosophy of religion through the Toronto Mennonite Theological Center in Canada. Conferences in Toronto and Qom have brought together Mennonite Christian and Shiite Muslim scholars to discuss topics such as modernity, revelation and authority.

After a devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran, on Dec. 26, 2003, MCC sent some 70,000 blankets to help replenish the emergency supplies of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, the primary responder to disasters in earthquake-prone Iran. MCC also provided funds for powdered milk and temporary showers.