Fifth day five of our week-long exhibition in Highcross to celebrate Inter Faith Week, showcasing the eight communities represented on Leicester Council of Faiths.
Yesterday was a relatively quiet day compared to this one: it's very media-intensive today, in three distinctly different ways. Around 0945, Bharat Patel arrives with a crew of two, to film some material for Pukaar News. He does some straight-to-camera stuff inside the display area, interviews Fayyaz Suleman, our Vice Chair, for 20 minutes or so, then records a few minutes with me. After they're finished filming at Highcross, they head off for the City Council buildings on New Walk, to film an interview with our Chair, Cllr Manjula Sood.
Early this afternoon, Rebecca Bryers, Production Assistant on John Florance's Sunday morning show on BBC Radio Leicester, arrives on the scene to record an interview with Jo Tallack, General Manager at Highcross and with me - first about our presence there during Inter Faith Week, then about the Multi-Faith Prayer Room. I took the above photo when the three of us were inside the prayer room. It's just about ready to go into use, but today the piped music was still playing in there. Rebecca's interview with Jo will have Dionne Warwick's "All the Love in the World" all over it when it's broadcast this coming Sunday.
Around 1600, we have our long awaited "speedfaithing" event that we seem to have waited the best part of a year for. However, a number of factors conspire to make it something of an anticlimax. I was hoping we'd have at least half a dozen people of different backgrounds of religion or belief here but there's only three of us (Noel Singh, Martin Stern and myself). Several of those whom I hoped would be joining in are out at Gateway College doing the Religion and Belief Roadshow organised by St Philip's Centre and there's no chance of them making it back here in time. There's a similarly small number of young reporters (Holly, Christina and Vickie in the photo above) and I'm not sure all of them took part in the "pre" event at Phoenix Square during Leicester Speaks. We make the most of it though - and the girls certainly seem to get something positive out of it - but I wouldn't call it our greatest moment.
Here are some of comments entered in the reflective log by volunteers on the exhibition today:
“Spirituality or shopping? Seems this morning consumerism and the offer of sales is winning!”
“Lots of people glanced at the displays and wider literature. A few read with greater attention and one picked up lots of leaflets to help with her educational consultancy work. So the stall is doing its work in many ways including giving us volunteers the opportunity of meeting across the faith boundaries.”
“I found that it was an interesting experience being able to find out myself about other faiths and being able to talk to other volunteers. I realised it is hard to grab the attention of passers-by to invite them into the space to talk about interfaith week but didn’t want to feel as if I was pestering them. A few people took occasional glances as they walked past, but only a couple stopped. I feel the space would benefit from a more interactive environment which would encourage people to enter the space and not feel afraid of talking to people with the aid of hands-on experience / interactivity rather than just leaflets and banners. The Highcross although deemed an ideal location to gather large quantities of people, at the time of year in particular you find that people are rushing around the shops and don’t have time to stop.”
“I enjoyed volunteering at the Interfaith stand. I learnt more about religion and found it very interesting. Although quite a few people looked at the stand from afar, there wasn’t actually many people who wanted to come up and talk. However I did speak to a couple of people who were quite excited when I told them about the film festival. Although the stand in Highcross meant more people knew about interfaith week, I think it would be a good idea to hold an interfaith festival in one of the parks which would attract lots of attention.”
“It has undoubtedly been a wonderful experience visiting and volunteering at the interfaith stand."
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