Emre Celik has been passionate about diversity and pluralism, particularly as a member of an emerging minority faith community and the struggles of integrating into the wider Australian society. This is particularly important as a Muslim Australian as there have been various periods of misunderstanding and xenophobia.
To counter this, Emre has played a key position in bringing together diverse communities in five major cities - Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Washington DC and Manhattan (New York City). He was the founding member of the Muslim Students Association providing services to both local and international students including pastoral care.
During his university years in Sydney, he played a role in the founding of Amity (previously known as Sule) College in Sydney West which ended up on the then cover of the Bulletin Magazine (1998) as the fastest growing school in Australia. He was a member of the Multifaith committee for Victoria Police and awarded for his contribution to bridging the gap between police and Melbourne’s faith communities.
As a member of interfaith committee member for the Parliament of World Religions that brought the largest global multifaith gathering to Melbourne, he organised the first ever Federal Parliament Ramadan Dinner in Canberra and similar firsts in the Victorian Parliament, Victoria's Government House and Victoria Police.
A stand-out project was an open invitation that was aired during an interview with Jon Faine on ABC Radio Melbourne where Emre invited Melburnians to share in a meal and break bread with a Muslim family. Close to 400 people were hosted in homes throughout Melbourne - all were strangers being hosted in family homes and engaging with Muslims for the first time.
He also ran two important projects that brought together Melbourne's Jewish and Muslims communities. The first was 'Building Bridges' that brought together 15 Jewish and 15 Muslim families through a year of engagement and dialogue in each other’s homes. As a result of the success of this first project, 'Embracing Youth' was created and brought together Jewish and Muslim university youth groups.
During his 10 years in Washington DC, Emre was:
- the organiser of the first ever Eid ul Adha celebration in the White House where he provided opening remarks (having the opportunity on different occasions to meet and engage with the Clintons, Obamas and Trump)
- a member of the FBI AMSAC (Arab Muslim Sikh Advisory Committee)
- responsible for bringing together government agency‚ policy think tanks, universities, religious organizations and other institutions to discuss and engage issues around overcoming diversity.
One memorable project for Emre was to bring together DC elite to celebrate an early morning breakfast (3am) - the pre-fast breakfast during Ramadan. He ran this for 7 years and had up to 120 people attend. He also helped organise ‘Overcoming Hate” at the National Cathedral.
As the President of the Rumi Forum, Emre oversaw diversity projects in Washington DC, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware and North Carolina.
He has been interviewed by major media groups in the Australia, US, and Europe to discuss Muslim diaspora issues and issues of integration and interfaith relations appearing in The Age, The Australian, NBC and CBS, among others.
In his new role at the Peace Islands Institute of New York, Emre helped bring together New York Jews and Muslims around a shared online meal celebrating Ramadan and the Shabbat on the same night (usually done live on site but due to Coronavirus this was moved to an online format). Emre was also recently selected to be a 2020 Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy Fellow.
Emre is always looking for unique ways to bring people together and engage, assisting by helping people overcome the concept of the ‘other’ and increasing social cohesion between distant communities and supporting everyone‚ integration and acceptance.