Past Newsletters: starting March 2009 April May June July August

March 2010 Letter from Eboo Patel 

During the horror of the Holocaust, the great Christian theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer said the following:

"Those who did not speak out for the Jews do not deserve to sing Gregorian chants."

Bonheoffer believed that standing up for those in peril was so central to being a Christian - so necessary to the core values of his faith - that those who stood by in silence did not deserve the honor of the title.

It reminds me of a great line in the work of the poet T.S. Elliot. "We do not inherit traditions; we work to make ourselves worthy of them." Bonheoffer gives us an example of what that meant for him. And when I think about this, I wonder: what does it mean to make ourselves worthy of our traditions in the 21st century? How do the words we speak, our daily actions - and interactions - with those who are different, speak to what it means to be a Jew, or Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu, or humanist today?

One place to start is the way that we treat our neighbors.

A recent Pew study revealed that more than 40% of Americans feel at least "a little" prejudice toward Muslims - compare this to 14-18% who report such prejudice against Christians, Jews or Buddhists. This means that our children are being educated in halls where they are afraid to reveal a whisper of their faith. It translates into fear of the doctors who sit next to us on the plane. It weakens our communities, and distracts us from the work to be done for those in need.

When I think about Bonheoffer's words, I always ask myself: what am I doing to make myself worthy of the tradition of Islam? What am I called to do as a Muslim?

For me, it is working with the Interfaith Youth Core to make the idea of interfaith cooperation a reality.

Thank you for building this vision with us.

Eboo Patel

These reflections come from Faiths Act Fellows, Karem Issa and Ushna Mughal, hosted by Blackburn Cathedral in Blackburn, UK. Check out their Faiths Act Fellowship Campaign page here.

 

Ushna's Reflection

Why should the West care about malaria? To answer this question, my colleague and I draped a mosquito-net over the beloved "Woman and Child" statue in Blackburn town-centre to illustrate that most people affected by malaria are pregnant women and children under the age of five

The sight of a bright blue mosquito net drew many shocked expressions from local shoppers. Many asked us, "Why are you putting a veil on our statue?" Others exclaimed, "What does malaria have to do with us in Blackburn?"' One angry citizen rang the police who came to investigate the disruption in the town centre!

This presented an excellent opportunity to educate them about malaria and the impact people of faith can have by working together. I told them why, as a Christian, it was important to me to work with my Muslim colleague to raise awareness and funds for people who were suffering from malaria. Within a couple of hours, and despite our near arrest, we were able to raise enough money to save 30 lives that could have been lost to malaria!

This stunt made me realise that this foreign concept maybe closer to home than we think. It also revealed that in our collective attempt to stop this global killer we are transcending geographical and cultural barriers and are becoming closer as a local and global community. 

Since October 2009, we have been encouraging young people to take a leadership role and develop skills that will turn their creative ideas into action. During the months leading up to World Malaria Day on April 25th and beyond, we are working towards launching the Faiths Act Radio show, organising charity dinners, concerts, auctions, sponsored walks and many other community based projects. Khadija Khan, a medical student in the Hub, told me, "In a way, it's not only people in Africa who will benefit from this campaign, but I myself will also benefit, as I will meet people from different cultures and religions and be inspired by their ideas."

 

Karem's Reflection

Picture this: A Muslim and a Catholic delivering a Sunday sermon on multi-faith action to a packed Anglican cathedral congregation. As a Muslim, I felt honoured to be given this opportunity. But I can't deny that I was also apprehensive about possible reactions. So it was heart-warming to hear the positive feedback and pleasant comments from the audience, as well as their willingness to take up our call to action.

Our sermon called on the congregation to work with their local neighbours to tackle malaria, a disease affecting our global neighbours. The concept of the "neighbor" is respected across all major religions, and drawing upon this was a good way of encouraging both multi-faith action and global citizenship.

Weeks later, when we promoted our Faiths Act bed-net gift cards at cathedral services in the run up to Christmas, the congregation had not forgotten our call to action. For every card purchased at £5, a bed-net would be provided for a family in Africa. The congregation raised over £1,000 in a matter of days, potentially saving 500 lives that could have been lost to the disease.

For me, one of the most unique aspects of our Fellowship is how a powerful image of multi-faith action is portrayed simply through working as a religiously diverse pair.  Interfaith cooperation is not something to which everyone is accustomed, but by working as a Fellowship pair in this context-and producing even the smallest of results-we can gradually open up doors to common action and cooperation.
Learn more about Karem and Ushna's work in Blackburn here.

August 2009 Letter from Eboo Patel

The holy month of Ramadan begins this weekend.  Every year during Ramadan, my usual routine is disrupted – in the best possible way. It is a time when I remember that my day doesn’t need to revolve around satisfying my impulse for a cup of coffee. It is a time when I remember that the center of the universe is something larger than I know, and my day instead revolves around reading more, praying more, and spending more time with those whom I love.
Ramadan is also a time of service, and I’d like to share one of our favorite Ramadan service stories with you all.
Meet Rachel Berkowitz and Nadeem Modan. Rachel is a Jewish student at Wesleyan University, and alumna of Interfaith Youth Core’s (IFYC) College Fellows Alliance. She is friends with a Muslim student, Nadeem, another IFYC Fellows alumnus. When he was an IFYC Fellow, Nadeem organized a Fast-a-thon on campus during the holy month of Ramadan to promote understanding and service. One year later, when Rachel was a Fellow, she built off Nadeem’s event – and the insight she gained from their friendship – and organized an interfaith Fast-a-thon during Ramadan.
The event engaged not only a quarter of the campus (800 students), who fasted for a day and donated their meals to a community soup kitchen and food pantry, but also the broader Middleton, CT community. The local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs skipped lunch at their meetings for one week and donated the money they saved. Several members of local churches and faith communities did the same. Through this initiative, Rachel and the campus’ interfaith leaders raised $11,300 for their local pantry.
These students made it clear that this event is about appreciating the shared value of service between religious traditions and acting on it together. Nadeem says, “The Fast-a-thon is a perfect demonstration of interfaith in action. I’m not okay that our neighbor is hungry, and neither are you. Let’s do something tangible about it together.”
This year, Rachel and Nadeem are organizing the third fast-a-thon at Wesleyan – and it looks like it will be even bigger than last year.

What excites me the most is that projects like this are happening all across the country. There are hundreds of Rachels and Nadeems working across faiths to better their campuses and their communities.

You can meet inspiring young people like Rachel and Nadeem in person at our upcoming conference, Leadership For a Religiously Diverse World. Check out the article below for more details. I hope to see you there!

Join us at the IFYC Conference!

This fall, as Interfaith Youth Core holds its 6th Conference on Interfaith Youth Work, Leadership for a Religiously Diverse World, participants, facilitators, and volunteers will come together with students from Northwestern University, putting into practice IFYC’s ideology of interfaith collaboration through service. Partnering with local non-profits, participants will volunteer in the communities surrounding the University, then join together in reflection, contextualizing their work within the larger interfaith movement. Yet the service event is just one component of the three-day conference, which will build on the successes of the 2007 conference.

Two years ago, Crossing the Faith Line: The 5th National Conference on Interfaith Youth Work gathered a record number of interfaith youth leaders. With over 500 participants, 52 workshops, and 75 presenters, the conference offered a breadth of topics and a rich opportunity to delve into the why and how of religious pluralism. Check out photos here.

This year, the Conference promises to be exciting and informative. IFYC is holding the Conference, co-sponsored by the Center for Civic Engagement, at Northwestern University. It will run from October 25th to October 27th and feature plenary speeches, workshops, trainings, and great networking opportunities.

We look forward to the opportunity to bring together a diverse array of leaders from the interfaith movement in engaging and productive dialogue and collaboration. Conference attendees will hear from numerous speakers, including:
-    Sojourners founder Jim Wallis
-    Harvard University Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein
-    Director of Informal Education at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College Rabbi Or Rose
-    Director of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center Rabbi David Saperstein
-    Director of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation Ruth Turner
-    Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, author and activist in faith-based initiatives and gender equality in Islam.

Be sure to register for the conference early, as space is extremely limited. Scholarships are available, which can be found on the conference website. Additionally, conference participants now have the unique opportunity to apply to host workshops and trainings. Proposals should be submitted via the conference website before September 1st.

The conference marks an exciting and concrete opportunity to get involved in the growing movement of interfaith youth work. We hope that you can join us!

 

Movement in Action: Intern Hussein Massoud

 

This is a dedicated forum to share the incredible stories of action we hear from our network. This month, we hear from one of the IFYC Summer Interns, Hussein Massoud, a young Muslim born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. He currently lives in Chicago, studying Chemical Engineering. He is interviewed by a fellow intern, Timur Akman-Duffy.

Timur: Given your engineering background, why did you decide to spend a summer interning at IFYC?

Hussein: When I was in Egypt I used to do a lot of community service, such as interning with the Aga Khan Foundation. But when I came to Chicago, I did not have the time to do anything extracurricular that did not relate to my engineering studies, and I wanted to get that part of my life back. Also, there have always been religious tensions in Cairo, so the idea of religious pluralism has always been in my mind. So when I got the opportunity to do service with the IFYC, I just jumped on it!

Timur: Do you have a memorable experience in Cairo that led you to Interfaith work?

Hussein: When I was in school in Egypt we had religion class. Muslims and Christians were separated and each group was taught their respective religions. They teach you basic stuff: religious ethics, how to pray, and so on. But during these classes my Muslim peers and I never knew what happened in the Christian class. This instigated us to ask questions about what was different and never what was common.

But one day I had an exam in my Islam religion class. I had a Christian friend, with whom I used to skip class. But since I had an exam I had to attend, he snuck in with me. He took the test and he kind of aced it. It was a test mostly on ethics, so most of the questions made sense to him. So I was surprised to know that the Christian class was learning the same stuff. From then on I started to learn more about different religions.

Timur: You mentioned your work with the Aga Khan Foundation. What was it like and how has it impacted you?

Hussein: I served in many different areas there, but the one I most enjoyed was translating. They would have teams from different countries come and film the Aga Khan Foundation, and so I had the opportunity to work as a field translator for one of these teams. I quickly found out that the citizens viewed me as their voice. I was invited to their houses for endless cups of tea and they would tell me very personal stories. It was very touching to do service on such a human level, and it just made me fall in love with the city more.

Timur: What has been your most memorable experience at IFYC?

Hussein: I think it was our first intern outing. It was during our first week, and we didn’t really know each other. But we spent a good two hours having everybody talk about themselves. I realized how diverse of a group of people I was sitting with. I thought that if life had more of these moments of people with different backgrounds and faith traditions having a good time together, that the world would definitely be better.

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July 2009 Letter from Eboo Patel

There are certain stories that I can’t tell enough times. They speak to the importance of interfaith cooperation so elegantly and powerfully that they practically tell themselves. This month, I want to share one such story with all of you.
Let me start with a remarkable fact: almost every single Jew in Albania, whether they were Albanians or refugees from other nations, survived during the German occupation during World War II.  The Jews were protected, through the raids and searches and the times in between, by Albanians who followed the national honor code of Besa: the deepest promise a person can give, the word that is never broken. Under Besa, Albanians took Jews into their homes, treated them as family, fed and clothed them, and sacrificed their own safety and the safety of their families for the sake of their guests.
Let me add another fact that makes this story even more remarkable: Albania was the only European country with a Muslim majority.
Nazlie Alla, whose Albanian Muslim family sheltered Jews from Greece, Slovakia, and Germany, said "As Muslims we welcomed them all. We welcomed them with bread, salt, and our hearts."
At the time, Albania had around 800,000 citizens, only about 200 of who were Jewish - though over 2,000 refugee Jews from Greece, Austria and Italy were taken in to the homes of Albanians as well.
And it wasn't just Muslims making sacrifices - the entire population, approximately 70% Bektashi Muslim, 20% Orthodox Christians and 10% Catholic - risked their lives to save Jewish strangers.
The comments of one man particular - Sadik Kalaja, who was twelve years old when his family sheltered a Yugoslav Jewish couple, allowing them to light Sabbath candles in their home - struck me. He said:
 "My father gave us an order: If there is a knock on the door, take responsibility."
As we go through this work together, I hope we carry this ethic above all. It is an ethic of Islam, an ethic of Albanian national tradition, and should be an ethic of the 21st century.
(For these and other stories of righteous Albanian Muslims, see Norman Gershman’s book Besa: Muslims who Saved Jews in World War II)
Finally, I wanted to share a few quick highlights from the past month. First, several IFYC staff helped plan and then presented at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco. The conference is world's largest gathering of volunteer leaders from the nonprofit, government and corporate sectors. I also gave the baccalaureate address at St. Timothy’s school in Maryland, and traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan to speak at the United Church of Christ General Synod. Meanwhile, at the IFYC offices we had a big month – see articles below for exciting updates regarding grants, awards and new opportunities for service!

Movement in Action: Serving with Heart

By Lucas Artaiz

I spent my years before college at a Jesuit high school in Portland, Oregon. Our school motto was “Age Quod Agis,” a Latin proverb that means, “Do well whatever you do.”

Leave it to the Catholics to refuse to let a dead language rest in peace.

Throughout high school, this concept was emphasized over and over again by teachers, coaches, and priests.
“Study your hardest; you only get to take this test once.”
“Leave it all on the field; there are no points for second place.”
“God doesn’t care if you have a bad voice; sing loudly with the voice He gave you.”

Yesterday, as I worked the lunch shift with other interns from the Interfaith Youth Core in the kitchens of the Chicago Christian Industrial League, I found myself thinking back to Age Quod Agis, and what it means when it comes to service. I know what it means to study well, to compete well, and to drive well; I know what it means to run well, to write well, and to speak well. And though I have never personally accomplished it, I even know what it means to sing well.

But what does it mean to serve well? Surely, simply to serve is enough. Or is it?

To answer this question, I began to think about what differentiates doing anything well from just doing it. I came to the conclusion that it comes to a question of heart: to do anything well, you must put your heart into it. Without heart, a powerful speech becomes empty words. Without heart, a courageous athletic performance becomes a silly game. And without heart, our service in the kitchens of CCIL becomes a bothersome chore.

Heart belongs at the center of service. To serve with heart, that is to say, with compassion for those we serve, is at the center of a philosophy of service. Heart demands that we focus not just on the task at hand, but the people for whom that task is performed. Age Quod Agis means immersing one’s self in complete devotion to the pursuit. In this case, that pursuit is each other, because truthfully, we are each other’s business.

On June 16th, President Obama echoed this sentiment as he showed the nation what it means to lead well. Announcing the United We Serve campaign, Obama called on each of us to “make volunteerism and community service part of your daily life and the life of this nation.” Seeking to revitalize the nation through service, Obama has embraced that we are bound by a collective fate; whether Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, or Christian, we must recognize that we are connected by our common humanity.

For many decades, the central narrative of America was of the individual pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. Through self-reliance and courageous individualism, it was said, one might overcome life’s obstacles. Now, Obama is adding to this narrative; emphasizing not just pulling ourselves up, but also one another. United We Serve seeks to add a new chapter to the unlikely story that is America, one that emphasizes not just the rugged individual, but also the compassionate community.

With service as the lifeblood of this nation, it is up to us – the people – to be the heart. We must put both love and force into our service. By doing so, our efforts cease to be isolated actions and instead flow outward to become part of a larger movement of service. Obama believes that this movement can transform the nation. I am inclined to agree.

 

Movement in Action: Serving with Heart

June 2009 was truly a landmark month for IFYC. In all, we received $1.48 million in new commitments to advance our work and mission in the coming years. The following is an overview of the grants that we recently received:
Einhorn Family Charitable Trust –This three-year gift of $861,954 underwrites IFYC’s Fellows Alliance and provides for an evaluation to study the impact of IFYC Fellows on their campuses and communities with the goal of designing an increasingly robust program model.
Henry Luce Foundation – IFYC received a three-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for $275,000 in support of building the nascent field of interfaith leadership. With this funding, IFYC will convene a group of 40 experts to define the field, explore and articulate best practices in interfaith leadership, and enact effective strategies to develop the field.
One Nation – IFYC received a $150,000 grant commitment to launch the One Nation Chicago project. One Nation Chicago will catalyze bonds of trust and community partnerships between Muslims and non-Muslims in Chicago’s neighborhoods and the greater Chicago region through interfaith dialogue and action.
Four Freedoms Fund – This grant of $100,000 will support the development of IFYC curricula and training modules that build leadership skills for young people and their allies to mobilize diverse communities of faith and forge a public climate that “welcomes the stranger”.
Walter and Elise Haas Fund – The Haas Sr. Fund awarded a $60,000 grant in support of IFYC’s Outreach Education and Training program activities in the Bay Area. This is one example of IFYC’s strategy to advance the movement through city-wide initiatives.
Kalliopeia Foundation – The Kalliopeia Foundation committed $30,000 to support the general activities of IFYC to advance the interfaith youth movement.

IFYC and Eboo Receive Award
IFYC is proud to announce that IFYC and Eboo received the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom of Worship Medal for 2009.
The Four Freedoms Awards serve to recall FDR’s famous address to Congress on January 6, 1941. In that speech, FDR proposed a moral order of governance for a peaceful, prosperous and civilized world, free from the hatred and bigotry that stem from religious intolerance. This award honors the work IFYC does in building bridges between peoples of different cultures.
We are thrilled by this award and thank the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institution for this honor.

 

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June 2009 Letter from Eboo Patel

Later this week, President Obama will give his long-awaited address from Cairo. It will focus on US outreach to Muslims around the world and the contributions of Muslims in America. The President has reported he will discuss the critical need for peace in the Middle East and greater understanding among nations.  

The location of this speech in Cairo means something for this movement. The pluralism inherent in Islam can be seen in the Fatimid dynasty, which ruled from Cairo in the 12th century. The Fatimid dynasty was known for its pluralism, showing religious tolerance for other sects of Islam, Jews, and Coptic and Maltese Christians. In 975, The Fatimid dynasty, ruled by Shi’a Muslims, also established what is now the global center of Sunni Islamic scholarship – the famous Al-Azhar University. I hope that President Obama points to these and other examples of the religious pluralism present in Egypt, Islam and America in his speech to highlight the potential the future holds – and then talks about how we can get there, together.

I hear more stories everyday of how that future is being built here in the United States and abroad through this rapidly expanding network of interfaith bridge-builders.
This month, I traveled across the country and realized just how far our movement is spreading. From Seattle, WA where I spoke at the 2009 American Jewish Committee Student Human Relations Program, to Shreveport, LA where I gave a talk at the United Methodist Student Forum, “Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges,” I met diverse young people doing remarkable things. I went to Minnesota twice this month, where the interfaith movement is growing state-wide. First, I went to the Westminster Town Hall Forum in the Twin Cities and spoke at the Saint Paul Area Council of Churches Annual Assembly, then I returned to speak at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. (To see video from the Twin Cities, click here. To hear the Westminster Town Hall Forum, click here.)

Finally, this is also commencement season and I feel lucky to have been able to speak to the graduating classes of both Dominican University and Elmhurst College, two places where I know young leaders are preparing to change the world.

I would like to leave you with these words, written by IFYC staffer Noah Silverman for the Baccalaureate address he gave to the Class of 2009 at his alma mater, Connecticut College.

“I do know that the world is confronting a whole lot of challenges right now, and I know that, honestly, it is up to us to address them. And by us, I specifically mean the young adults in this room. I think one of the most exciting things that is happening in the world right now is the role that young people are playing in shaping its future, and I think if you look at recent history you’ll see that when young people start playing a large role, great social change is possible.”

 

Movement in Action:

This month, IFYC hosted 7 youth workers from the United Kingdom on an exchange program. They visited a variety of social service, faith-based and community organizations in Los Angeles and Chicago, and were trained in IFYC methodology of interfaith youth leadership and sevice-learning. Here are reflections by one participant upon returning the UK.
Interfaith Work in the US by Faisal Hussein
When I first heard that every child in the US does 40 hours of community service before graduating high school, I wondered why on earth they would do that.
What did they do wrong?
Then, I learned “community service” is the American terminology for doing community work! A culture of providing for the community is a positive initiative that America should be proud of. It was inspiring to see young people from all walks of life, faith groups, social classes, race backgrounds and of all ages working together to benefit society. It reminded me of a verse in the Quran “O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another.”
I was a part of a UK delegation to the USA. I was invited by Interfaith Youth Core through a visit organised and set up by the US Embassy in London. The trip was for 10 days, and we visited Los Angeles and Chicago. During our stay in LA we visited the Mayor’s office and met Miriam Ali (Muhammed Ali’s daughter). We also visited the Umar Ibn Al Khattab Foundation, a truly inspiring Mosque project that covered many areas of social welfare and inter-faith engagement. Lastly, we met with a number of academics at the University of Southern California. The interesting thing at USC was the strong push to inter-faith engagement from academia to grassroots.
Four days later, we travelled to Chicago to the home of the Interfaith Youth Core. There we met the whole team, learned of their vision and aims behind the visit. Again, we met some really interesting projects like CAIR-Chicago and the Inner-City Muslim Alliance Network (IMAN). We also took part in the Shabbat service at Anshe Emet synagogue and Sunday service at Fourth Presbyterian Church. I would definitely recommend all Muslims to try this and experience different services.
There are two things I took back with me from my visit (neither of which was my luggage, which the airline lost!) First of all, I bring back the importance of engaging in storytelling and interfaith community work. Story telling is an exercise where young people are given the chance to express themselves, their lives, their challenges and goals. When you share personal experience, you find that you share a lot more with people of different communities. With regards to inter-faith work, I think that it is a good start to engage in verbal dialogue, but more important to discuss common values to bring about common action.

 

Welcome IFYC Summer 2009 Interns!

IFYC summer interns will be starting this month. The 2009 Summer Internship Program is based on the IFYC Leadership Development model. Our interns receive intensive leadership trainings and engage in academic discussion sessions regarding the field of interfaith work. They will blog weekly, develop their own stories, do service work together and support IFYC program areas through various projects. Each of our interns will be mentored by IFYC staff, and we look forward to a productive summer together and getting to know each of them.
Timur Akman-Duffy is a Second Year at the University of Chicago majoring in Mathematics, with a minor in Human Rights. Timur was born in Short Hills, New Jersey, but has lived throughout the United States and overseas. Last year, Timur took a year off college and served with Americorps partnered with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. While serving, Timur met various people from around the nation, which sparked his interest in interfaith work.

Molly Fried is a recent graduate of The George Washington University in Washington, DC, where she studied world religions, concentrating in Judaism. As the granddaughter of two Holocaust survivors, interfaith dialogue has always been important to her as a tool for preventing prejudice and intolerance. From studying religion in the nation’s capital for the past four years, she has observed the intersection of religious life in the public sphere, increasing her passion for interfaith work.

Hana Suckstorff is a sophomore history major at Northwestern University, where her participation in University Christian Ministry (UCM) sparked her interest in interfaith work.  Besides leading a weekly Bible study, she currently serves as a youth representative on UCM’s Board of Directors.  Her involvement in the religious community at Northwestern has exposed her to a variety of faith traditions that have deepened her understanding of God, and she believes firmly that her Christian faith calls her to engage and understand people of all different religious traditions and work with them toward a shared vision of a more inclusive, peaceful, and just world.  

Lucas Artaiz is a rising senior at Northwestern University where he studies Social Policy and History. Originally from a small town near Portland, OR, Lucas attended a Jesuit high school in the city where he worked in Campus Ministry and developed the Community Service Program offered by the high school. Lucas grew up in a large Catholic family, has studied Islam in his free time, and currently belongs to a traditionally Jewish fraternity.

Emy Cardoza has just finished her second year as an M. Div. student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Originally from Florida, Emy completed her BA in Religious Studies at Rollins College, where she was able to explore the relationship between religious practice and social engagement. Currently, she enjoys studying how theologies of particularity and personal religious experiences can be integrated into the formation of a community’s sense of identity.

Christopher Stedman recently finished his first year of a masters in Religion at Meadville Lombard Theological School, and is preparing to begin his thesis on LGBTQ young adult interfaith pastoral services paired with art therapy. Chris is a 2007 graduate of Augsburg where he enjoyed serving on the Leadership Team for The Campus Kitchen, a not-for-profit that recycled food from the on-campus cafeteria and redistributed it to local community agencies. Chris worked primarily with an agency that served Muslim Somali immigrants, and that, in conjunction with his thesis on Buddhist-Christian theology, spurred Chris' interest in exploring interfaith work.

Amanda Mountain is a third year Masters of Divinity student at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. She became interested in interfaith work with youth while working at Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, MI. Amanda hopes to utilize her former career as a professional ballerina and teacher, to create an interfaith curriculum that utilizes the universal language of the arts as a catalyst for peace-building. Amanda participated in two Days of Interfaith Youth Service projects while working with the Youth Theological Initiative at Emory University and was inspired to incorporate IFYC’s methodology into her own work.

Sayira Khokhar is a 3rd year student at Les Roches School of Hospitality Management at Kendall College in Chicago. In 2004, Sayira discovered her passion when volunteering for Muslim Youth of North America in the annual conference for Islamic Society of North America. She believes that with frequent interactions with people of different faith will help to break down the barriers of ignorance. As a strong Muslim American, Sayira also hopes to set an example for other young Muslims to find a balance in this constantly changing world.

Kathryn Dennett is going to be a junior at next year Northwestern University where she’s studying English and Sociology. She is involved in the Undergraduate Leadership Program and active on campus working to educate her peers about health education through Plus Energy: Students Fighting Cancer. Kathryn is an Episcopalian Christian who is active in her church and the on-campus Reformed University Fellowship. She is inspired to join the interfaith movement because she believes in the power of co-operation and the importance of listening to each other in fighting the issues that are facing the world today.

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May 2009 Letter from Eboo Patel

I had the privilege of honoring Holocaust Remembrance Day this year by speaking at the newly opened Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. It reminded me of one of the most powerful interfaith relationships in history - the partnership between Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who walked side by side at the Selma Civil Rights March. Rabbi Heschel, who escaped the Holocaust in Warsaw by just six weeks, found in the Civil Rights movement a way to perform tikkun olam, repairing the world.

Rabbi Heschel knew that action comes in many forms. He once wrote that "Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed." He knew that words had the power to affect change in the world – be it positive or negative. He knew that the way we talk about one another, the way that we address our fellow humans and the problems that confront us, affects the future as much as physical actions.

This is why it is critically important that we learn how to talk to each other about religion in a productive way – because the alternative doesn’t just end in hurt feelings, but in a deed that threatens the world of interfaith cooperation we are building.

I spent a lot of time talking with young people this month, and I am encouraged by what I am hearing. Our IFYC Fellows Alliance 2008-2009 held a final retreat this month in Chicago. I enjoyed hearing the Fellows reflections on their year organizing interfaith action on their college campuses – but the most inspiring moments were discovering where they are headed from here, what they will do with the tools they have learned and the new language they have. (To see pictures of the 2008-2009 Fellows, click here.) I also spent time at Princeton University, giving a public talk as well as getting a chance to have smaller discussions with the Muslim Students Association as well as the organizers of a city-wide Day of Interfaith Youth Service (DIYS). (You can read more about DIYS in the article below.) In Connecticut, I spoke at the Taft School, and in DC, I spoke at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism’s Consultation on Conscience.

Through these events, I remember Rabbi Heschel’s wisdom – and I hope that each time we talk about building religious pluralism, it becomes a little bit more concrete in the world. Let the sounds of our speech be the start of transforming our world, and let them lead to common action together.

 

Movement in Action: Days of Interfaith Youth Service 2009

One of the cornerstones of Interfaith Youth Core’s methodology is "common action for the common good." Every year, the Days of Interfaith Youth Service (DIYS) campaign brings together young people of diverse backgrounds with the support of IFYC to do community service across the globe. DIYS events give organizers and volunteers a chance to reflect how they are inspired to serve by their faith tradition through open interfaith dialogue.

Boston Area DIYS event brings together students from different religious backgrounds to serve

The Roxbury Mosque in downtown Roxbury, Mass. stands as a tall, proud, red brick building with a black, domed roof. It sharply contrasts with the surrounding urban neighborhood and the recreational park across the road. Upon first glance, the mosque almost looks out of place, but upon further inspection, it becomes clear that it is this diverse nature that makes the mosque so beautiful.

Because of its distinctiveness, the Roxbury Mosque served as the perfect setting for Greater Boston's third annual Day of Interfaith Youth Service Sunday, March 29, when over 100 people gathered for a day of discussion about religion and various community service projects. During the DIYS, Jews, Catholics, Muslims and members of other religious faiths participated in open discussions about what religion means to them and meaningful projects they have participated in.

Click here to read more.

Princeton University’s Green DIYS event participants plant flowerbeds and vegetable gardens for a local school.

More than 100 young people of different religious faiths gathered at Rivera Elementary School in Trenton yesterday to plant some gardens in the hope that food and flowers, as well as some interfaith understanding, would grow.
The event was Princeton University's Day of Interfaith Youth Service, but students from beyond the university lifted shovels, pushed wheelbarrows and discouraged weed growth by laying down gardening fabric.
Ivy Alphonse-Leja said she came out to shovel sod because she was inspired by the words of Eboo Patel, who was recently named to President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Click here to read more.

Washington University hosts a powerful interfaith discussion on faith and environment sparked by the documentary Renewal.    

Senior Divya Srinath, the 2008-09 Washington  University Saint Louis (WUSTL) Interfaith Youth Core Fellow, will lead a group of WUSTL students and students from Saint Louis University and Maryville University in a national day of interfaith youth service March 29.
Nationally, this event is planned and run by hundreds of local student leaders, college chaplains, congregational youth leaders and interfaith organizers.
Focusing on the topic of faith and the environment, the group, made up of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal and Methodist students, will meet at 1 p.m. to prepare community garden beds at Clark Elementary School to get them ready for spring planting.
Click here to read more.

Join the Bridge-builders’ Network to learn more about the Days of Interfaith Youth Service Campaign and  to organize your own DIYS!

Religious Pluralism in Your School…

By OET Assistant, Mary Ellen Giess

Imagine yourself at the head of a middle school classroom. The daily task of delivering a persuasive speech has been assigned, and your first student stands up to speak. “Jesus is my Savior,” the girl says earnestly. “He died for my sins, and he died for your sins, too. By accepting Jesus, you will gain eternal salvation.” You’re dumbfounded. You gaze around the classroom, suddenly fully aware of the diversity you always saw - different skin tones, facial features, dress and realize that religious diversity is just as present in the room. Your eager student at the head of the class is speaking on in heartfelt tones, and other students are starting to look around at one another, and more importantly, looking to you. What do you do? If you stop your student, are you halting a well-prepared response to the assignment at hand? Doesn’t she have a right to express her genuine beliefs? Yet, if you let her continue, what about the rights of the other students? What about your own religious beliefs?

This is just one example of the difficulties educators face every day in our classrooms. In an ever-diversifying world, educators face the challenge of finding ways to address and respect individual identity without disrespecting the rights of others. It is a tenuous balance, and there are many resources available to address issues of racial, socio-economic, and cultural differences. Religion, however, is such a taboo subject in secondary schools that most educators avoid the issue altogether. Yet it inevitably arises, perhaps in an overt way as described above, or in the obviousness of different dress codes or eating habits, or even perhaps more subtly in course curriculum. How are we equipping teachers to be leaders for religious pluralism in the classroom, a place where religious diversity is readily apparent?

This summer, Interfaith Youth Core is partnering with Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI) to offer a summer workshop for educators entitled, “Religious Pluralism in Your School.”  IFYC and GYLI staff aim to provide educators with the tools necessary to engage religious diversity in classrooms and schools in a thoughtful, meaningful capacity. IFYC will share ideas on incorporating IFYC’s methodology of storytelling, shared values, and service-learning into classroom interaction and curricula. GYLI will present frameworks to understand diversity among students. Eboo Patel, IFYC’s founder and Executive Director, will lead an interactive workshop providing the vision, knowledge base and skills-set for interfaith leadership in secondary schools. In the end, educators will depart with a learning plan to implement ideas learned in the workshop, a school assessment resource to analyze religious pluralism in their own community, and a strong network of other educators who are addressing similar issues. Educators are at the forefront of religious diversity issues in the United States and this session will help them address these issues confidently and respectfully.

For more information on the workshop, please visit: www.ifyc.org/events/teachers_workshop or email Mary Ellen Giess at maryellen@ifyc.org. 

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April 2009 Letter from Eboo Patel





The armies of the day have chased the army of the night.
Heaven and earth are filled with purity and light.
– Rumi

I wanted to share this Persian poetry with you in honor  of the season that is sacred to so many. This month, Muslim communities around the world celebrated Navroz, the Persian New Year. Last night, Passover began at sundown. This weekend Christians will come together to celebrate Easter Sunday. This season is a time for many people from different traditions to reflect on the past, and it is also an opportunity to think about the possibility that the future holds.

(If you'd like to read some interfaith reflections on Lent and Passover from IFYC staff, please click here.)

For me, the greatest possibility of all is a future where religious communities live together in equal dignity and mutual loyalty. This dream lies in the hands of a critical group of young people: interfaith leaders.

At the Interfaith Youth Core, we work to equip young interfaith leaders with the framework, knowledge base and skill set to realize religious pluralism in the 21st century. One way we achieve this is through intensive leadership fellowships. Throughout the past few months, we have been working to select exceptional candidates for two different fellowships. The first program, the Faiths Act Fellowship, on which we are partnering with The Tony Blair Faith Foundation and Malaria No More, brings together 30 interfaith leaders from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The inaugural class of Faiths Act Fellows will spend the next year as ambassadors for inter-religious cooperation in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and ending deaths due to malaria. The second program, the IFYC Fellows Alliance, supports interfaith leaders on college campuses across America. These Fellows organize interfaith action on their campuses - from service projects to speakers to dialogues - to promote cooperation across religious differences. You can read about what one of our 2007-2008 Fellows Alumni, Josh Stanton, is doing these days in an article below.

These programs nurture young interfaith leaders who bring the ideal of interfaith cooperation to life. We believe in their capacity to engage the great religious diversity in America to achieve pluralism. But they can't do it alone. They need support from all levels - from policy makers and philanthropists to college chaplains and faith community leaders to educators and parents. This is why we are trying something new with our Spring Appeal that launched last week. We are turning it over to our young people to tell their success stories. By clicking here, you can read about and watch videos of our young leaders sharing stories about their interfaith action in the world.

I urge you to take a look at what these young people are doing. They are a glimmer of hope at this time of uncertainty, and an inspiration during this season of reflection and renewal.

 

 

Movement in Action:

This is a dedicated forum to share the incredible stories of action we hear from our network. For April, hear from Fellows Alliance Alumnus Josh Stanton on his new interfaith initiative!

Freedom to Engage With One Another
By Josh Stanton, IFYC Fellow 2007- 2008

The Exodus is the defining moment in Jewish consciousness. On the day we escaped from slavery in Egypt, we came into our own as a nation. Moses, the great prophet of the Jewish people commanded of his followers: “Remember this day, on which you went free from Egypt, the house of bondage, how the Lord freed you from it with a mighty hand…”(Exodus 13:3). Three millennia later, we still heed his call.

The upcoming holiday of Passover, which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, is a particularly significant holiday for those engaged in inter-religious work. In most historical epochs, it was not possible for people of different religious communities to collaborate as equals, learn from each other, and work for the common good. Societal norms forbade it, as did leaders who saw such interaction as a threat to their legitimacy.

Thankfully, in our era, inter-religious interchange has become evermore possible and its fundamental importance significantly recognized. It is no longer difficult to find a medium for dialogue. Churches, mosques, temples, and synagogues, as well as a myriad of non-profit organizations, offer programs centered on dialogue between members of different religious traditions. Now the real challenge is increasing the level and frequency of inter-religious discourse.

The new Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™, www.irdialogue.org, hopes to respond to this challenge by providing a forum for academic and social issues affecting religious communities around the world. Through a peer reviewed publication and multiple online forums, the Journal seeks to build an inter-religious community of scholars, in which people of different traditions learn from one another and work together for the common good.

While the first issue of the Journal will be dedicated to the dynamics of dialogue itself, subsequent issues will address topics often shied away from in the context of inter-religious dialogue. The second issue will be entitled "Engaging the Taboo: Gender, the Body, and Sexuality in our Religious Traditions,” and the third issue will focus on the role that religion can play in both fomenting and preventing violence.

The Journal’s goal is to bring scholars together with activists and non-profit leaders to discuss these topics. By drawing members of all three groups together to learn, discuss, and debate on a free online platform, the Journal hopes to enhance crosspollination and promote innovation within the field. Moreover, because of its electronic format, the Journal will be accessible to an international audience. While inter-religious dialogue, work, and scholarship often takes place locally, lessons learned can be applied globally.

The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ will be stewarded and peer reviewed by a staff of seminary students and religious scholars, and an illustrious Board of Scholars and Practitioners, including: The Swami Tyaganada, Hindu Chaplain at Harvard University; Edward Kessler, Director of the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths and Fellow of Cambridge University; Burton Visotzky, Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Eboo Patel, Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core; and Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, Academic Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School.  

The Journal was founded in June 2008, when I approached Stephanie Hughes, co-Chair of the Student Senate at Union Theological Seminary, with an idea for some kind of inter-religious publication. As a rabbinical student, I felt motivated to find a partner from another religious background equally invested in the idea of mutual respect, learning, and religious cross-pollination. Having formed a strong partnership, the two of us set off to found what became the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™.

Though still an emerging medium for dialogue, I hope that the Journal will one day yield results worthy of celebration. For our freedom to engage in inter-religious discourse is not one that we should take lightly. It is time that we take full advantage of freedom’s blessing.  

UK Training Trip

In March, two IFYC staff members from the Outreach Education and Training program, Hind Makki and Noah Silverman, traveled to London and Manchester in the United Kingdom. They were there to conduct workshops and presentations and hold meetings with individuals and organizations, focusing on religious pluralism and the public square in the UK. They trained students using IFYC's interfaith service-learning methodology, held frank discussions with interfaith practitioners and policymakers on the value interfaith service-learning can add to the national discussion on social cohesion and recommended individuals to attend the International Visitor Leadership Program to be hosted by IFYC later this spring.

While in London, Hind and Noah held an interesting peer-to-peer learning session with some of the staff members at the Three Faiths Forum and St. Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. While sharing IFYC’s training curriculum, Hind and Noah also learned about how the educators at the Three Faiths Forum use the shared values among the Abrahamic traditions to spark interfaith and intrafaith dialogue among elementary school students, underscoring both the commonalities of substance, as well as the differences in articulation. Immediately following the session, one of the TFF educators led a workshop with students sharing her personal story, following IFYC’s storytelling methodology, allowing her to connect with her audience in a new way.

While much of the conversation in the UK surrounding the government’s Preventing Violent Extremism (PDF) agenda focuses on the Muslim community in particular, most organizations Hind and Noah visited welcomed the IFYC approach of combining narrative-based interfaith dialogue with reflective community service as an alternative. IFYC’s methodology was seen as a noncontroversial way to address the feelings of marginalization among some youth of color, as well as some economically disadvantaged white youth in rural areas, by focusing on shared civic values and not on religious differences.  In the north London borough of Harrow, the most religiously diverse in the country, the PVE officer had been encouraging his youth to serve their community in intentionally interfaith settings. He enthusiastically embraced IFYC’s methodology and expressed his desire for other local governments to also view the PVE goals through an interfaith lens.

Hind and Noah also linked organizations in London and Manchester with one another and plugged unaffiliated individuals into existing UK-based interfaith networks. They met with a lively group of Muslim students in Manchester, whose aim this year is to reach out to other faith communities through community service and dialogue. Noah and Hind discussed the difference between diversity and pluralism and led the young women in a dialogue facilitation workshop. IFYC later connected these young ladies to the London-based network of the Coexistence Trust, through that organization’s Student Leadership Seminar.

Already, interfaith organizations have begun to adopt IFYC pedagogical tools, members of the Muslim community have found a more palatable angle by which to address the Prevent Violent Extremism agenda and a major secular, youth empowerment organization is including religious diversity in an upcoming leadership training seminar this summer. Hind and Noah also met with many extraordinary people and learned about the stellar work their organizations are spearheading. IFYC hopes to continue strengthening these relationships as an interfaith partner from across the pond.

This spring, IFYC will offer mini-grants to qualified individuals or groups who want to organize a Day of Interfaith Youth Service in the UK and will host 8 outstanding interfaith youth workers on an exchange to the United States. Read more about the activities of some of these interfaith activists in the British Bridge-Builders group.

 

 

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March 2009 Letter from Eboo Patel

 

“We must come to see in the world today that what [Gandhi] taught, and his method throughout, reveals to us that there is an alternative to violence, and that if we fail to follow this we will perish in our individual and in our collective lives.”

These are the words of Rev. Martin Luther Kind Jr., spoken on All India Radio in March 1959 while Dr. King was traveling through India on a personal pilgrimage. As is evident from this quote, he was deeply inspired by Gandhi’s non-violent teachings. Learning about Gandhi’s Hindu-based satyagraha (soul force) movement to free India stirred something in King. He had always believed in the Christian ethic of nonviolence, but thought it was relevant only for personal relationships. He was amazed that Gandhi had made that ethic the basis of a successful social reform movement, and he went forward to make it the ethic of the Civil Rights Movement. He said at the beginning of the trip that “ …my true test would come when the people who knew Gandhi looked me over and passed judgment upon me and the Montgomery movement." He later described his travels through India as one of the most eye opening experiences of his life. (You can read more about King’s journey here.)

I just returned from a U.S. State Department speaking tour of India in honor of the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s visit. In my tour through New Delhi, Bhopal and Mumbai, I used the legacy of King and Gandhi as a springboard to explain why the world's oldest and largest democracy should lead the world on the critical issue of interfaith cooperation. Throughout my time in India, I was impressed with the strength of civil society, and the aspiration to make the country a better place. Everywhere I went I met someone who has started an NGO. One of the most impressive, the Delhi-based Pravah, has been running youth empowerment programs all over the country for nearly 20 years.
One young man, a student at a local technical college in Bhopal, stood out as a true exemplar of middle India: earnest and aspirational. During the question and answer section of my talk, he stood up and announced he had prepared a 15 minute lecture on Martin Luther King Jr., which he wanted to share with me. After the program was over, he ran up and gave me the text of his speech. It was written in a schoolboy's cursive, in blue ballpoint pen. When I told him I didn’t want to take his only copy, he assured me that he had the speech memorized – and I don’t doubt him. That is the attitude of ready to-do-whatever-it-takes-to-make-it India – an attitude which is both inspiring and infectious. 

Prior to leaving for India, I was asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on “Engaging with Muslim Communities Around the World.” In my testimony, I focused on interfaith cooperation as a viable alternative to the clash of civilizations, and offered recommendations on how the US can best engage the Muslim world, support efforts to build pluralism and partner with the Muslim-American community to forge more effective partnerships abroad. The Honorable Madeleine K. Albright, Former Secretary of State, and Admiral William J. Fallon, USN, Former Commander of the U.S. Central Command, also testified before the Committee, headed by Chairman John Kerry and Senator Richard Lugar. I spoke on the second panel which included Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and Zeyno Baran, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. You can watch the hearing here.

Finally, at the beginning of the month, I spoke at the 35th Annual Maryland Student Affairs Conference, centered around “Exploring Big Questions: The Search for Meaning and Purpose”. Since so much of our work at IFYC focuses on college and university campuses, I valued this opportunity to speak to four hundred student affairs professionals from 39 universities, because these are the folks on campus who identify students leaders and have a major impact on shaping them. In our follow-up question and answer workshop, their dedication to guiding their students with compassion and integrity was evident. Check out more about the conference here.

 

Movement in Action

By Hafsa, Leadership Associate

 

 

As many of you know, IFYC’s Leadership Program hosts the Fellows Alliance, a group of 19 undergraduates from colleges across the country. These fellows come from diverse religious and philosophical traditions and are responsible for building religious pluralism on their campuses.   
Part of my role overseeing the Fellows Alliance is to visit each fellow on his or her campus for a two-day site visit. These site visits are an excellent way to observe what is happening in terms of religious life and interfaith relations on campus, and they allow us to network with students and administrators who can serve as allies for building the movement.

One of our 2008-2009 fellows, Moustafa Moustafa, is a junior at the University of Michigan studying Medieval Iberia and Biopsychology. When Moustafa Moustafa, an Egyptian-born Muslim-American arrived on campus at the University of Michigan, he brought with him a faith-inspired dedication to meet health care needs around the world. Among his classmates, he discovered that many were similarly inspired by their faiths, but they weren’t working together. In fact, there was very little positive engagement among the diverse student religious groups. Recognizing the potential within his fellow students and their religious communities to contribute in a positive way to both healthcare and development, he founded an organization to bring them together and amplify their impact. By pooling the resources of its members and their respective religious communities, the Children of Abraham (COA) student organization, has sent several forty foot containers (the size of a semi trailer) filled with surplus medical supplies to communities across Africa. The next shipment, which is scheduled for this month, will include everything from surplus crutches to wheelchairs, beds, surgical devices, syringes, and an ultrasound machine. Partnering with local Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic communities, Moustafa credits the collaborative spirit of interfaith work with the ability to donate so many surplus medical supplies to communities in need – supplies that would otherwise be thrown away. (More information about Children of Abraham can be found here.)

To get a better idea of exactly what I do when I visit our Fellows, here is a “Day in the Life of a Site-Visit” at the University of Michigan with Moustafa:

9:00AM: Breakfast meeting with the head of the Diversity Affairs office on campus to discuss how religious identity can be included in conversations surrounding diversity.

10:30AM: Meeting with a professor in the Sociology Department on the theory of social movements and lessons learned from the Civil Rights era.

Noon: Lunch and discussion with a group of students representing the leadership of the diverse religious student groups on campus. Students explore ways for their groups to better collaborate with each other, especially in terms of service projects.

2:00PM: IFYC Media expert, Erin Williams, runs a Media Training for Children of Abraham (COA), a non-profit group that Moustafa directs on campus. COA brings different faith communities together to collect medical supplies, which are then shipped to different parts of the world, including Ghana and Tanzania.

5PM: Tour of warehouse where Children of Abraham keeps medical supplies and equipment.

6PM: Dinner with chaplains to discuss Moustafa’s work on campus, explore ways we can offer additional support to him, what they think the Fellowship means for sustained interfaith work on campus, and what we can do deepen interfaith work on campus.

 

 

Western Europe Training Tour

IFYC has just completed its first major international training initiative, and we wanted to share the results with you. Two staffers, Zeenat Rahman and Hind Makki, recently returned from conducting a pluralism training trip throughout Western Europe. The goal of the tour was to spark a movement of young people committed to building religious pluralism and understanding. Zeenat and Hind traveled through Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy, conducting trainings in Rotterdam, Brussels, Ghent, Paris, Turin, Milan, and Barcelona.  In Rotterdam, Milan, and Barcelona participants traveled from many different cities within their respective countries to attend the trainings. 

In total, Zeenat and Hind completed twelve trainings and made one key note presentation. They were in front of about 400 people, and trained in-depth 300. Many of the audiences were made up of people who work in intercultural mediation, intercultural/interfaith dialogue, youth workers in minority communities and those in the social service sector. Depending on the audience, the trainings comprised elements of the framework of religious pluralism, community assessment, leadership capacity building, and skill building in dialogue facilitation and storytelling.

In Barcelona, IFYC conducted a training with partner UNESCO Centre of Catalonia (UNESCOCAT). More than 30 people attended the training with representatives from five different religious communities in Catalonia - Muslims, Catholics, Sikhs, Mormons and Buddhists. Additionally, participants came not only from Barcelona but traveled in from Badalon, Tortosa, Salt and Blanes. At the conclusion of the training, one staff member said to us, “It took you ladies coming all the way from the United States to get us in a room together talking about these issues.” Bringing different interfaith initiatives together as collaborators in one movement is a clear indicator of the trip’s success.
This training trip allowed IFYC the opportunity to spread the message of religious pluralism, expand the network of interfaith Bridge-Builders, and gain valuable understanding of the unique context of the countries visited. We look forward to maintaining close partnerships with our trainees in Western Europe and continuing to collaborate with them. You will soon see some new faces on Bridge-Builders from all over the world, and we encourage you to reach out as well!

In the future, besides bringing people to our conference in October, IFYC would like to facilitate international exchanges between these countries, as well as expand to other countries in Western Europe, most especially Germany. We also hope to help our partners develop both national and transnational interfaith associations for interfaith work. These networks will encourage international interfaith work by building capacity for and ease of access to interfaith allies. As we have seen our interfaith network in the United States grow with your help in the last seven years, we think similar networks around the world will catalyze a global interfaith youth movement.