"Interfaith Leadership and Critical Issues"

Beginning with a beautiful, inspirational “call to action” Christian prayer and Hindu call for peace, this morning’s session, "Interfaith Leadership and Critical Issues," was moderated by interfaith leader Joshua Stanton. Josh began the session asking each of the panellists to talk about the importance of interfaith networks in the work they do.

Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, the Executive Director of the African Leaders Faith Alliance and representing Malaria No More, started her session by explaining why malaria is so important in tackling the Millennium Development Goals. These guidelines that aim to completely eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. If the global community tackles malaria head on, then 6 of the 8 MDGs will have been addressed. The faith community has been the single most important community that has moved the dial on raising awareness on malaria. There is always an imam or a priest or a reverend that can help AFLA to access the people who need the most help in poor communities.

Jennifer Bailey, Food Security of Middle Tennessee, started with a story about the difficulties some people face in simple and necessary tasks to simply get the food and nutrition they need to sustain themselves.

Geri Mannion, representing the philanthropy sector, talked about the radical change in the foundation world regarding the understanding of faith and the importance of faith in organizing communities to work together to address social needs.

Josh then asked the panellists to discuss the challenges faced by interfaith networks addressing issues of social concerns and asked them to throw out some solutions that have worked in .

One challenge is the question of how to bring disparate faith leaders together, especially those who do not necessarily have relationships with each other? Shifting the conversation from one of charity to one of justice is one approach Jen Bailey uses to bring these leaders together.

According to Jodi Kretzmann, Director of ABCD Asset Based Community Development, people of faith tend to be on the lookout for ways to serve, but there is a power disparity between them and those they are serving. In terms of community building, power and justice, everyone who comes to the table should figure out way to honor the assets and resources that everyone brings to the table.

While faith communities often bring credibility to the issues that non-profits bring up, there are often issues of trust and internal “crazyness” within mono-faith communities that make it difficult for them to work cohesively. Saleemah has had a very personal experience with this situation, but her advice is to always keep in mind that patience is a necessary ingredient to interfaith engagement.

Funding is, of course, a huge challenge to interfaith leadership on these critical social justice issues; some foundations are wary of funding faith-based organizations because of policy implications, even if they care about the issue that these faith-based organizations address. Geri discussed how the post 9/11 paradigm has changed the context in which foundations operate.

The plenary ended with a lively and very interactive Q&A session with engaged audience members, asking very tough questions.

Hind Makki
Interfaith Youth Core Trainer
October 27th, 2009