Interfaith Understanding: Past, Present and Future (Webinar)

📅 Thursday 20th March, 4:30-6:00 PM
👥 For: Teachers, school leaders, youth workers, policy advisors, young people, and those engaged in interfaith dialogue

Registration: Meeting Registration – Zoom

Interfaith Understanding: Past, Present and Future

Have you ever encountered a reluctance to talk about religion, faith or belief – due to the idea that they only cause conflict?

In this webinar we will present a parallel narrative, through the past, present and future of interfaith understanding. We will launch a set of three new resources to explore these themes with young people, created in partnership between the Faith & Belief Forum and the National Citizens Service as part of their Skills Booster Resources.

PAST: Academics from the Genizah Research Unit at the Cambridge University Library join us to explore interfaith understanding of the past. In their collection of over 200,000 fragments of medieval manuscripts, we will uncover often untold stories of faith communities trading together, sharing celebrations and festivals, and building relationships.

PRESENT: we will be joined by two members of the Faith & Belief Forum’s Young Interfaith Leaders project. In this project, a group of young people went through training and mentorship to write their lived experience of hate and division in communities, schools and universities since 7^th October. They will share reflections on the journey they took as a part of this process, and on the power of storytelling in building empathy.

FUTURE: what does interfaith work, and interfaith understanding, have to offer in today’s polarised world? Join us in an immersive session of collective imagination, which is a practice that encourages us to break out of the cycles of division and injustice we feel stuck in, and instead centre the imagination in pockets of the future that are emerging – right now.