Interfaith – Page 3

The Gift of Giving and Friendship

Written on June 4, 2013. Posted in Christianity, Dialogue, Islam, Tackling Poverty, The Feast.

Today two young men from The Feast project Y4M (Youth for Moseley) visited the Sparkhill food bank for a behind-the-scenes look at what happens to food once it’s donated.

These young men from Moseley School, one Christian and one Muslim, joined forces to make a video encouraging others from their school to take part in a food drive that will start soon.

Not only were these two representing the Y4M after school club, but they were also representing their faith and looking at how they could work together to tackle poverty.

When asked why they were willing to give up a day of their holiday to help out they said:

“It’s important because not only is it written in the Qur’an, but it nourishes your own soul, knowing that you are making a difference. When you give, it removes your own selfishness.” said Bilal.

“I like helping people. I was always taught to respect people and the Bible says to do for others what I’d like them to do for me. It’s part of who I am. Being Tswana (from Botswana) that’s how we’re grounded – you just know someday, someone will need to help you.” Mandla said.

These young men have also become pretty good friends in the short space of time they’ve known each other. Having met in the after-school club (Y4M) just 3 weeks ago, they spent most of the journey to and from the food bank talking about their faith and their beliefs. It was so encouraging to hear them speak so positively about each others faith and to have them both speak so passionately about recent events in the media.

When reflecting on their day, Bilal said: “It’s kinda cool when a non-Muslim defends a Muslim because it shows the brotherhood between them. It touched me when Mandla said he knew that all Muslims aren’t like how the media negatively represents us at times.”

“Bilal called me a friend and a good guy – that’s something I don’t get every day, especially from a Muslim. It made me feel quite good about myself and about how other people from a different religion can still view me an appreciate me.” said Mandla.

Today I thought we were simply going to a food bank to see how food is collected, stored and distributed. What I witnessed, however, was a marvellous gift of friendship, exchanged between two young men of different cultures and different faiths.

The Feast join the team at the FNC

Written on June 3, 2013. Posted in Christianity, Dialogue, Interfaith, Islam, The Feast.

We’re delighted that at the start of May the local charity The Feast moved into the FNC. The Feast is a local Christian charity that works to build relationships between Christian and Muslim teenagers.

The Feast is all about…
•Exploring faith: young people are encouraged and equipped to discuss their faith in ways which draw out both the similarities and differences between them.

•Creating friendships: by bringing together young people in a positive and fun environment we provide the opportunities for them to get to know one another, work on projects together and build on-going friendship built on trust and respect.

•Changing lives: having been to events run by The Feast the young people are challenged and enabled to live out the lessons they have learnt in their everyday lives amongst their friends, family and the wider community.

Their work fits with the three strands of work that we undertake here at the FNC namely: Tackling Poverty, Engaging with Other Faiths and Transforming Communities.

Do look out for news of what The Feast are up to or visit their website and facebook page for regular updates.

Building a Peaceful City

Written on May 23, 2013. Posted in Interfaith.

Sometimes events outside Birmingham can have a big impact on people here and on relationships between people of different faiths. In the past few weeks Dr Andrew Smith has been involved in working with Muslims and Buddhists affected by the plight of the Royhinga people in Burma. This has resulted in some work to build friendships between the communities here in Birmingham and a statement from the Birmingham Faith Leader’s Group which you can read here. Statement on Burma

He was also part of a city wide group who write a response following the brutal murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich on 22nd May. That response can also be downloaded and read here. Birmingham Condemns Woolwich Murder – Statement

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.

Getting Crafty at the Old Printworks

Written on February 18, 2013. Posted in Interfaith, Near Neighbours.

Sophie Handy writes about Community Craft Worskshops at the Old Printworks in Balsall Heath:

“We are two weeks into the programme and have started to learn batik and felt making. The first week we had twelve women. The women who came were from a mixture of existing groups including the Friends of Clifton (a parents group who meet once a term for fundraising activities at Clifton Primary School), members of the congregation from the Wesleyan Holiness Church, members of the Saheli women’s project, associates through St Paul’s Church and Community Development Trust and a couple of women who have attended independently due to their own personal interests in crafts. The second session in felt making- we had sixteen participants with five new members joining us (two through Clifton Primary School, two with a particular interest in felt and one who had just heard about the project through a friend- all of these new members are keen to join the whole programme).

Batik Workshop- 6th February

This was the first workshop- led by Layla Tutt. Layla is an exceptionally enthusiastic young lady who has seven years experience of teaching and developing her love for batik. We chose Layla as to start as we know her passion is infectious and she is exceptionally skilled in making people feel welcome and relaxed. We had an introductory welcome which allowed everyone to share their personal interests and start to get to know each other.

Batik is a beautiful art form which as you will see from the photos everyone was able to create and complete a fantastically colourful piece. Apart from one lady who remembered doing batik many years ago at school, no one else had tried batik before. Layla explained the history of batik and gave the group a great insight into the many countries and cultures which use this technique to create textiles for clothing, home furnishings and tourist memorabilia. Layla explained how she has developed her skills in this area, creating her first pieces to sell at local crafts markets and now how she has developed a career from her craft- alongside her passions for playing the guitar- of which she also gave us all a rendition during the lunch break! Layla then led a demonstration explaining the materials, tools and techniques of batik and the different methods of application.

The women who have joined this group are from a variety of different places and although they are all from the local area, most had not met before. During the workshop there was a gentle hum of conversation and supporting banter towards one another commenting on each other’s work, inquiring how they had created that effect, their colour selections as well as some general more personal questions of interest, including HRT advice!
Due to the shared interest and interactions with the batik, everyone had a common ground and mutual reason for being there. This is why I love arts and crafts for community projects. There is no right or wrong way of doing things, everyone’s interpretation is different and everyone can learn and share something.
The lunch break was lovely and encouraged the women to move around and talk to people other than those they had been working by. I made sweet potato and carrot soup and we had fresh home-made bread from our in-house baker, who following its success has now struck us a deal for the whole programme. Some of the women from the group took a loaf home with them that day and have placed their orders for more.

At the end of the session everyone left saying how much they had enjoyed the batik session, how great Layla is and that they were looking forward to the next session. We talked about having an exhibition at the end of the project which everyone was really enthusiastic about. The group left their batik creations behind to start the first display of the groups work.

Felt Making- 13th February
This workshop was led by Ildiko Nagy. Ildi was at the group last week so she had already started to get to know some of the group. Ildi gave an introduction to the materials and her personal interests and developments in the craft- including passing round some wool from her grandfathers sheep back home in Hungary. She then gave a demonstration into needle felting techniques. As with the batik workshop, the group were given the choice to either create a template as a guide for their designs or start directly with an idea, pattern or image from their imagination. This worked really well, as some people are more confident than others with their own creativity and enjoy this direct experimental approach, while others are much more comfortable with the method of explicitly visualising their idea and planning prior to embarking on their final design.

There were a few new members to the group this week and it was really nice to hear people welcoming each other and saying how much they had enjoyed the session last week. Some of the women were discussing forthcoming workshops and which ones they were most looking forward to. We also discussed as a group the possibility of starting a craft business utilising everyone’s skills base and making things to sell- a few of the women were very keen on this idea as a way of sustainably carrying on doing the things they love.

Everyone has their own agenda for joining the workshops, while some are keen to learn or develop a particular craft technique, what is becoming apparent is that everyone seems to have an inherent creativity that they are enjoying being able to explore and share. Being in this setting is encouraging everyone to try new things, express themselves and realise how like minded we all are!

Curry and Chips – how a panto built a triangle of friendships between a church, a temple and a theatre company

Written on February 18, 2013. Posted in Christianity, Hinduism, Interfaith, Near Neighbours.

On Sunday February 9th members of St Edmund’s Church in Tyseley and the Shree Hindu Community Centre came together to perform a pantomime called Curry and Chips. Pravin Sangani, a key organiser an motivator of the event writes about how it came about:

During the summer of last year Vicar of St Edmund’s Church Tyseley (Church), Committee members of Shree Hindu Community Centre (Temple) and office bearers of Near Neighbours (NN) met at the temple with a view to foster better relationship between Christian and Hindu communities. As such there were no issues to resolve but there was very limited interaction between these two communities in Tyseley. After usual introductions and other formalities, all present thought of planning the activities to bring two communities closer. At coffee break, I suggested to Jessica Foster mainly in jest that we should have pantomime at Christmas and ‘clowns’ from both faiths can deliver the message which could be more effective than having serious theological discussions. Somehow, Jessica took the joke more seriously than I thought. Both of us being interested in the theatre soon saw the potential of the proposal.

Fortunately, Jessica knew about the activities and the ability of Women and Theatre who specialise in the community theatre. Church, Temple and Theatre deliberated on the proposal and its practicalities and put a funding proposal to NN which was duly approved. It soon transpired that pantomime was not a very practical idea and by the time the funding was approved, mounting a successful project at Christmas 2012 would have been very risky. Women & Theatre came up with the idea of writing a script bottom up, where both Christian and Hindu participants brain storm the issues that will make a good drama. Everybody agreed around a realistic plot where a young Hindu student from India stays as paying guest with not so young land lady in Tyseley and the religious, social and cultural challenges it creates for both and their relations.

Women & Theatre coached all the participants to think of the scenes and situations to support the above stated plot. This proved very interesting indeed, all the barriers started disappearing and the participants blended as a team. One of the major catalyst was when the ladies from both faiths were practicing for a Hindu stick dance and where all the ladies had to wear Indian costumes. The enthusiasm and dedication of Therese Collins and Liam Walsh from Women & Theatre was undiminishing particularly at the testing time when we had to reschedule the original date of performance due to heavy snow fall on and around 20 Jan 2013. There were other practical issues like unavailability of all cast at very few practices planned. Women & Theatre always had plan B in their locker.

The rescheduled date of Sunday 10 Feb 2013 arrived with the fear of snow. This time prayers from both Church and Temple were answered and all the star cast and an audience in excess of 100 could remain present. Right from the beginning, the audience was very responsive and the whole play went flawless. There was a planned audience participation situation which went well. At the refreshment time, there was an inquiry from another Hindu organisation if we could do a repeat performance.

Without doubt, a lot of acquaintances struck and friendship established between the members of both the faiths. Revd. Steve Simcox has invited all present to visit the Church and the Temple has asked everybody to walk in as and when but particularly at the official ceremony of the new floor project within next 3 months. My tip for further successful events is that there is a lot of creative energy within groups and all the ideas deserve research. It is amazing how they can be successfully implemented with dedication and enthusiasm.

Pravin Sangani

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.)