Thursday 25 November 2010

inter faith training for Connexions staff

While she was at our National Inter Faith Week exhibition in Highcross yesterday afternoon, Chogma (Education Outreach Officer at the Nagarjuna Kadampa Buddhist Centre) said, "I'll see you tomorrow at the training for Connexions." I replied, "What?" She didn't have much more information than that, but I couldn't let it lie. I phone Connexions around 1600 and eventually got put through to the member of staff organising what's virtually a day-long event for the organisation's staff. Jacqui Wittingham sounds pleased to hear from me and is glad to give me a table to display our wares at the event and give me a half hour slot in the programme to introduce the Council of Faiths.

I get the Council of Faiths original pop-up banner out of mothballs, with a handful of freebies and head to Halford House in Charles Street, where the training event is being held in the basement. Staff appear and disappear, fitting visits downstairs around breaks in their work schedules. Numbers vary from 20-odd at one point to hardly more than half a dozen at another.

When I arrive, they're in the middle of a presentation on diversity in African culture. This is followed by a staff member speaking about Ibiza 24/7, a Christian prayer mission working with holiday makers in Ibiza. then we're taught a gospel song. I'm on next, and make a pretty good case (if I do say so myself) that any training or awareness-raising activity in Leicester should involve the Council of Faiths. Then I have to dash back to Highcross in time for the visit to our exhibition by Sir Peter Soulsby MP.

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