INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 6: HIGHCROSS EXHIBITION

Day six of our week-long exhibition in Highcross, showcasing the eight communities represented on Leicester Council of Faiths: Bahá'ís, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs.

All week long I've been in the process of setting up a visit to the exhibition by Jon Ashworth MP (Labour, Leicester South). Jon's been supportive of the Council of Faiths and our work on several occasions and I was pleased to be asked to set up an informal meeting between him and members of some of our member faith communities. That's Jon in the photo above (3rd from left), with (from left to right) Minou Cortazzi (Bahá'í representative), Gursharan Thandi (Sikh representative), Cllr Manjula Sood (Hindu - and Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths), Cllr Inderjit Gugnani (Sikh representative), Ajay Aggarwal (Co-ordinator at Leicester Council of Faiths), Father John Lally (Christian representative). Jon is able to visit for about an hour. There's enough room within the display area to make a circle of chairs for him to sit and talk with the group there.

Early today, I share a couple of hours on the display with Dr Ruth Young, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Leicester and one of the principals behind the "Mapping Faith and Place" project which has led to the Faith Trail walking map in Leicester city centre. We've borrowed the pop-up banners and booklets for these, to help smarten up our exhibition here.

Other visitors and volunteers on the exhibition today include Rev. Sally Martin (Lead Chaplain for the Pastoral and Spiritual Care Team at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust) and Anjala Farmah (to the right and left, respectively of Cllr Manjula Sood in the photo above). We also receive a visit, late this afternoon,  from Cllr Ted Cassidy MBE, Assistant Mayor and Cabinet Lead for Economic Development, Culture and Tourism (in photo below, along with Beverley Farrand, from Leicester Cathedral and Shane Bordoli, from Nagarjuna Kadampa Buddhist Centre). I delivered handwritten invitiations to the exhibition for the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and all Cabinet members to the Town Hall on Tuesday morning; Ted tells me that he only received his through the internal mail this morning!