With hate and violence targeting faith communities and houses of worship at alarming rates across the United States, often mayors and elected officials are those who stand alongside first responders with messages of inclusion and peace. This has been true in countless incidents of arsons and vandalisms at American mosques.

Local government leaders have also been on the frontlines responding to devastating shootings at a Wisconsin Sikh temple in 2012, a Charleston church in 2015, and a Poway synagogue earlier this year.

When not responding to crises impacting faith communities, public officials are engaged with religious institutions which serve as refugee resettlement and immigrant integration centers, hosts of afterschool programs, social service providers for homeless populations and disaster relief organizers.

Despite the many ways public servants in local government are brought into contact with America’s religiously diverse faith communities, very few have access to ongoing religious and cultural literacy training, guidance on inclusive policy making, and peer to peer support. In response to this need, the Aspen Institute’s Inclusive America Project has partnered this year with America Indivisible and the Freedom Forum Institute’s Religious Freedom Center to launch the Public Leaders for Inclusion Council.

Read the full article about inclusion through leadership by Usra Ghazi at The Aspen Institute.