friendship – Page 2

The Winners Are Announced

Written on November 20, 2013. Posted in Dialogue, Interfaith, Near Neighbours.

The winners of the Near Neighbours Photography exhibition were announced and awarded their prizes on Saturday 16th November 2013. At a lively and fun evening at Birmingham Cathedral hosted by Nikki Tapper from BBC RadioWM, the winners were awarded their prizes by The Right Revd David Urquhart, Bishop of Birmingham. The audience was entertained with drumming from the Christian and Muslim women’s drumming group which had been supported by Near Neighbours.

The Winners were:

In the Faith Category 1st Prize Paul Hillcox with ‘Autumn Light’ 2nd Prize Andrew Brazier with ‘In faith we Ying and Yang on land and sky’ 3rd Prize Kirat Singh with ‘Interfaith Friends’

In the Friendship Category 1st Mary Simones-Jones with ‘Margaret and her friend’ 2nd Amrick Singh Ubhi with ‘It is an honour and a pleasure to meet you’ 3rd Leina Zaigirdar with ‘Heartfusion’

In the Community Category 1st, 2nd & 3rd were won by Ines Elsa Dalal with ‘Muslim Family and a Sikh family collide’ ‘St Paul’s Community Trust 10th Anniversary Open Day’ ‘Olympic torch relay aftermath’

The overall winner was Paul Hillcox with ‘Faith Reflected’

All the entries can be viewed on the Near Neighbours Flickr site

Competion Winners on Display

Written on November 18, 2013. Posted in Dialogue, Interfaith, Near Neighbours.

The Near Neighbours in Birmingham photo competition was opened with a private viewing for invited guests to St. Philip’s Cathedral. The 60 guests all spoke very highly of the photos which are being displayed in the Cathedral alongside the Faithful Friends Exhibition. The evening included speeches by The Rt Revd David Urquhart, Bishop of Birmingham and Mohammed Ali the well known Graffiti artist.

The competition winners will be on display in the Cathedral until the 23rd November and all the entries are available for the public to see when they visit.

The competition invited amateur photographers from Birmingham to submit pictures on the themes of:
Faith
Friendship
Community

There was a winner, runner up and third place in each category plus a selection of ‘Judges’ Favourites’ which did win prizes but which were highly commended by the judging panel.

There was also an overall winner drawn from all the pictures. This was won by Paul Hillcox for a wonderful close up study of an eye with a church window reflected in it. Paul said of his picture:
“The image was an inspired moment after our church service during the summer . I was trying out a new lens and just wanted to try something a little different and was attracted by the light from our church windows reflected in my wife’s eye. My wife, Veronica, has a very deep faith and I was quite moved by the image when I viewed it on my laptop. I have never tried this type of photo before and I am delighted that others find the same deeper meaning in the photograph.”

You can view all of the entries on the Near Neighbours Flickr Site

Catalyst Team Synergy Video

Written on September 9, 2013. Posted in Catalyst, Dialogue, Near Neighbours.

In early 2013 the Catalyst group were split into three teams and each was challenged to run a Near Neighbours event. Each event was different effective and exciting. One group ran an art event, another trained local leaders in how to apply for Near Neighbours funding and the third, Team Synergy, ran a morning for children from two primary schools, one Catholic and one Sikh. They produced the following video which captures the fun and significance of the morning for the pupils.

FAITHFUL PHOTOGRAPHERS NEEDED

Written on July 22, 2013. Posted in Near Neighbours.

Near Neighbours is calling for photographers with a faithful focus to train their lenses on the friendships that have been built across the city between people from different religious traditions.

We are looking for pictures that capture one of three themes:
Friendship
Faith
Community

A selection of the photographs will be displayed in St Philip’s Cathedral from 16-24th November which coincides with Interfaith Week. The winning entrants will be awarded Adobe software packages to help them develop their images and create more professional pictures.

Judges viewing the pictures will include:
The Dean of Birmingham, the Very Revd Catherine Ogle
Internationally renowned graffiti artist, Mohammed Ali
Professional photographer at Outroslide Photography, Dharmendra Patel
The Bishop’s Director of Interfaith Relations, Dr Andrew Smith.

Birmingham’s Near Neighbours Co-ordinator, Jessica Foster said: “We have funded some 130 projects in the city which aim to turn neighbours into friends and build lasting relationships between people of different faiths.

“We would love to see images of all sorts of relationships and activities that show how people in Birmingham work together, play together, eat together, share together and laugh together, building stronger communities and growing in understanding.”

Photographs should be submitted to Jess@nearneighbours.com and will be displayed on the Near Neighbours Brum Flickr site. A selection will be displayed in Birmingham Cathedral from 14th til the 23rd November 2013. The competition is open to any amateur photographer based in the West Midlands.

Follow the competition at #nnbrumpics

Graduates plan for the Future

Written on May 14, 2013. Posted in Catalyst.

On the 11th May the Catalyst course came to an end. The day finished with a graduation meal at Al-Faisal’s restaurant in Birmingham. About 50 guests attended and heard about what had happened on the course and the impact it had on the group members.

The evening concluded with the members being awarded a certificate and being presented with a personalised Catalyst hoodie. Major Sam Edgar from the Salvation Army and Rabbi Margaret Jacobs were representing the Birmingham Faith Leaders Group and handed out the certificates and hoodies.

During the evening the group explained that they are intended to continue meeting as a younger faith leaders group. Plans are well underway for their first meetings and updates on how to keep up with their progress will be coming soon.

Learning to Lead in the Big City

Written on March 11, 2013. Posted in Catalyst, Dialogue, Near Neighbours, Training.

‘Tomorrow members of the public are coming for a guided tour of London, your task between now and then is to research, plan and then lead a tour for them’.

How would you feel if that was said to you? well that was just one of the challenges the Catalyst group faced on their residential trip to London. They had less than 24 hours to plan a trip in a city few of them new well for people they had never met. It demanded that they drew on all the leadership training they had received through the Catalyst programme so far, and was a real challenge.

The four day trip also included a visit to the House of Lords to discuss being a faith leader in the public and political sphere. They were guided by the Rt Revd Bishop David Urquhart, Bishop of Birmingham and one of the Lords Spiritual who sits in the House of Lords. He gave a fascinating tour of the house explaining its workings and history and chaired a discussion for them to grapple with how to be a leader of faith in a society where faith isn’t always taken seriously or considered relevant to political or moral debate.

Having the chance to spend time together, socialise and eat together brought the group much closer and led to some really deep and profound conversations on topics such as women in leadership, salvation and gay marriage. Our evening reflections included the opportunity to reflect on pieces of art from different faith traditions, on the final day we visited Tate Modern and looked at art inspired both by a spirituality and by no faith or spirituality at all.

It was a fantastic time which drew us together as a group, challenged us all and developed leadership skills amongst this key group of emerging leaders in Birmingham.

Oh, and how were the guided tours? Brilliant.

Welcoming the Stranger – Birmingham Churches Winter Night Shelter 2013

Written on March 5, 2013. Posted in Christianity, Community Regeneration, Faithful Neighbourhoods Centre, poverty, Thrive, Uncategorized.

January 19th 2013 saw churches open their doors to homeless people and offer a bed to those who need it. Building on last year’s pilot, this year 6 hosts churches; 4 Church of England churches and 2 Baptist churches, offered shelter and hospitality for 6 weeks in January and February. The project was a collaboration of so many churches, projects and individuals. It included over 300 volunteers from a range of churches and traditions staffing the shelter; providing food, sleeping overnight and generally making guests feel at home. Guests were referred to the shelter by SIFA Fireside and also by outreach teams from Reach Out Network and Grace Bible Fellowship, who, as well as referring rough sleepers into the shelter, also met them at the pickup point and chaperoned them to the venues helping them to settle in. Transport was provided by church projects and Shencare Community Transport along with volunteer drivers for each night, and at each venue there was a volunteer coordinator who managed the shift and food rotas. To date the project has provided shelter to 31 guests, and offered a warm place to sleep during what has been, at times, a bitterly cold couple of months. Wonderfully, during their time with us, some of our guests have been able to find work and accommodation, and we have also been able to work with Midland Heart Homeless Services team to help guests access any support available to them. One of our guests who had been homeless for 4 years, with the support from an experienced volunteer, was helped to make a successful homeless application which resulted in him being given accommodation. Thank you to all those who have given their time, resources, prayer, money and support to make this project such a great success in providing shelter, hospitality, friendship and support to those who have used the shelter this winter. It has been such a blessing to many guests and volunteers alike. However in terms of tackling homelessness it is only really scratching the surface in helping to address the issues that are faced by those sleeping rough. There is a strong desire from The Birmingham Christian Homeless Forum, Housing Justice and Thrive Together Birmingham to engage and help to mobilise churches and Christians who are passionate and committed to supporting homeless people. We are trying to do this by developing this and other projects, and to work with other voluntary and statutory organisations to be part of addressing the needs of homeless people face. For more information about how you can support this and other homeless projects please contact e.neill@HousingJustice.org.uk or info@thrivetogetherbham.org

Planning, Personality and Pressure

Written on January 13, 2013. Posted in Catalyst, Dialogue, Faithful Neighbourhoods Centre, Near Neighbours, Training.

The third Catalyst day took place at the Faithful Neighbourhoods Centre on Saturday 12th January. In a packed day the group learnt about basic planning for events including budgeting, risk assessments and safeguarding. After a wonderful curry for lunch the group thought about how their personality affects their leadership by going through an introduction to the Myers Briggs Tye Indicator personality test. This useful and entertaining session was led by Tom and Judy Walsh who helped us all see how personality impacts the way we lead and how we relate to those in our teams.

The final session of the day was on Leadership under pressure and was led by Jake Diliberto who brought a vast array of experience to the topic and described pressure situations he’d been a leader in that we all hoped we could avoid!

As a warm up for this session the group were all put under pressure as they were challenged to use £5 to buy ingredients for a tasty snack for us to share in the tea break. The pressure was added to as they only had 35 mins from receiving the instructions to needing to serve the food. In this time they had to buy the ingredients, prepare them and do a risk assessment on the activity. A beautiful fruit salad, mini fruit kebabs and cheese and tomato on ciabatta were the results.

In April all the members of Catalyst will have to prepare and run a Near Neighbours event, to prepare them for this task Immy Kaur shared her experience of running the Art for Action project in 2012.

Next up for Catalyst is our Residential trip to London from 28th Feb-3rd March. Look out for more updates

Can God be your Best Friend?

Written on December 18, 2012. Posted in Catalyst, Dialogue, Near Neighbours.

This was one of the questions that came out of our discussions at the second Catalyst day in December. The participants were asked to describe God in juts a few sentences and then to look at what other people had written. If they warmed to that description of God they put a tick. If they didn’t really understand what was written they put a question mark. If they didn’t describe God in that way they put a dot. One phrase that got an almost equal number of ticks and dots (but no question marks) was ‘My Best Friend’. For some this felt comforting, for others it was too informal and reduced God to our level.

Munpreet, who wrote the comment, has written a thoughtful blog post on why she wanted to describe God as her best friend. It’s well worth taking the time to read.

So what do you think? Too informal, an intimate and profound insight? And how might you describe God in just a few sentences?

Faithful Friends – Portraits of Friendships

Written on November 30, 2012. Posted in Dialogue, Interfaith, Near Neighbours.

Since September 2011, Near Neighbours has been encouraging people across the city to come together to make new friends, deepen relationships and transform their communities. We now have 92 projects that have been funded by Near Neighbours – initial feedback suggests 3,000 people have met each other through these events.

To celebrate these friendships between people of different faiths and ethnicities we comissioned 15 portraits taken by a professional photographer, Dee from Outroslide, that give the people and their relationship a context.

We shot the pictures and interviewed all the people involved during June, July, August, September and a bit of October, had bespoke display boards made that could fit in a car and be assembled as quickly as possibly (thanks to John at Morse-Brown Design) , hunted around for funding (thanks Transforming Church and Westhill Endowment) and eventually launched the exhibition on November 17th at St Martin’s Church in the Bull Ring.

The events was hosted by the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd David Urquhart working with comedian Barbara Nice and Sajid Khan. Guests browsed the exhibition, heard from some of the participants, danced, laughed and enjoyed afternoon tea.

The exhibition and its launch were featured on Central News – the piece included interviews with people who had been involved with the projects and some of those whose friendships are depicted in the portraits. You can watch the coverage here.

Since then the Exhibition has been seen at the launch of the Christian Muslim report into women’s work, at the national Together In Service event hosted by the Department for Communities and Local Government. It is booked by local primary schools, churches, universities and other places of worship but is available for anyone to borrow.

Booking forms and more details are all on our website – we really want people to see these pictures and think hard about the personal and political importance of friendships that bridge communities, challenge prejudice and broaden our imagination. Have a look at the pictures and stories featured in the exhibition on the Outroslide website.

(All pictures from the launch were taken by Helen Tomblin – thanks.)