INTER FAITH WEEK 2011, DAY 1: HIGHCROSS EXHIBITION

First day of our week-long exhibition in Highcross to celebrate Inter Faith Week, showcasing the eight member communities represented on Leicester Council of Faiths.

This is the third consecutive year we've been invited into Highcross to put on this display. This time though, things are refreshingly different. We're in a new location: bigger, more central - and (I'm glad to say) warmer! This time last year, there was snow on the ground and we were rather too close to the outer doors of the West Mall for comfort. The weather is milder this year, but we're also deeper in the heart of Highcross (just over the line that marks the start of the East Mall, for any retail facility anoraks out there). We're at the bottom of the central set of escalators, which makes this spot one of the most highly frequented in the whole building. The loos are just behind us too, which helps make this a popular destination.

We're able to put more into the display this year. We have trestle tables for the first time (three of them) we've borrowed the University of Leicester's "Faiths Trail" and "Mapping Faith and Place" banners (and a box of their guide books for the city centre walking tour of places of worship). Our set of pop-up banners is arranged in a completely new way, back-to-back in pairs. No doubt I'll be messing  around with the arrangement as the week goes on.

Rosemarie Fitton (who has helped bring down all the material from Bishop Street), Gursharan Thandi and Shobha Trivedi are first on duty at the stall today. Shobha's daughter, Natasha, helped out for a couple of hours at this event last year. We're joined by Shobha's friend, Prafulla Raja. They all help with the final stages of setting up so that we're fully operational by 1115.

I leave them to it just before midday, to take a smaller amount of exhibition material by taxi to Beauchamp College for their "Together" event. But no sooner have I arrived there than circumstances compel me to return to Highcross - though not before putting up our old banner and laying out some of our literature, leaving it all in the care of Council of Faiths Secretary Inderjit Gugnani, who is manning a stall for Oadby & Wigston Sikh community. Pity: I'd been looking forward to this one. I have to leave before Bobby's vegetarian restaurant has even started cooking.

I'm back at Highcross just before 1400, in time to relieve Gursharan and spend the next hour or so on the stall with Deirdre O'Sullivan. Deirdre is a Lecturer in Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. She's been instrumental in developing their "Mapping Faith and Place" project. The next hour passes quickly (for me, anyway!) with a very interesting chat about the project and related topics.

Just before it's time for Deirdre to go, two Highcross staff members arrive and start taking photos of our display. Jo and Laura (photo above) put together a web page with highlights of each weekend at Highcross, for staff. We'll be in the one they're compiling today, apparently!

In the outside world today, there's a procession between two Sikh gurdwaras, as part of the local celebration of Guru Nanak's birthday. The procession ends at Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Holy Bones, near Highcross. Mid-afternoon, we see a lot of Sikhs coming through Highcross and many of them stop and look at our display.

Since we first had our exhibition at Highcross in 2009, we've kept a "reflective journal", in which we ask our Inter Faith Week volunteers to record something of how they felt about the experience. We're doing so again this year. Here are some comments by some of those who took part on this first day of Inter Faith Week 2011:

"Always a learning experience - right at the start I spoke to a man who raised many questions about faiths - good starter!"

"Very few visitors to the exhibition, those that did were pleased with the information they could take away. Spoke at length to a teacher and passed on the light source / colander example explaining Hindu god(s), which she loved. One person went past muttering that the Christians didn't have a banner - but they had gone before I could catch them. Lovely talking to other volunteers." 

"I have enjoyed being a volunteer for the Interfaith Council. I have learnt a lot by just observing people's reactions when reading quotes from various faiths."

"Although there were many shoppers, very few bothered to look at the displays. Talked to a Christian lady who wanted to find our more about the Faiths Trail and a teacher who took away a lot of leaflets. Many people just waled through the exhibition! It was lovely talking to Rosemary and Gursharan (George was fun too!)" 

"Interesting being right in the middle of Leicester going by. People seem shy about coming in beyond the banners."

I'd say that's the sort of mix of comments I'd expect for the first day, especially when we've had a few people with us who haven't taken part in this event in previous years.

As well as our exhibition, the East Mall features a big promotion for Nintendo this weekend. Visitors are invited to join in the celebration of a host of imaginary characters who inhabit a fantasy realm, where they achieve astonishing feats of magical skill. These characters have millions of followers, brought together by a common devotion that overcomes differences of age, language, nationality and race. Their devotees expend  immeasurable amounts of time on the glorification of their idols and pour unimaginable treasure into the coffers of those who are the guardians of their legacy and the trustees of their future expansion toward global domination. I'm talking about Super Mario Brothers of course. Who did you think I meant, faithful reader?

While on my way to Beauchamp College around lunchtime, I receive a text message from my friend Javid Djalili, who says he's coming up from London later this afternoon, to attend the first screening (Little Buddha) in our Faiths Film Festival at Phoenix Square. I meet Javid off the train just before 1700, in time to dash down to Highcross so he can get a look at the exhibition (photo above). Just as we arrive there, I receive a call from Maureen Sier, who helped out on our very first Inter Faith Week back in 2009. While she and I talk about how the week is shaping up, it strikes me that this is a serendipitous moment; Maureen's daughter, Sonia, is a filmmaker who has worked on inter-faith themes and topics (see my blog entry about her film, Beyond Tolerance) - and she's called me, out of the blue, just when I'm with Javid, who is in the process of setting up Interfaith Focus, an international charitable foundation for inter-faith filmmakers! So I pass the phone to Javid. He and Maureen have never met, but they have what appears to be a convivial and useful conversation, which I am sure is to their mutual benefit.

2009'S TOP 10: 6

Launch of “Beyond Tolerance” DVD,

University of Glasgow,

Tuesday 2 June 2009

Dr Maureen Sier and her daughter Sonya (Director of Freshlight Films) launched the DVD and education pack, Beyond Tolerance, an inter faith resource for young people and adults. Young people from a variety of religious and national backgrounds were interviewed in the film and spoke at the launch about the ways in which interfaith engagement had made a positive impact on their lives.

I was invited to attend this event and I just couldn't say no. Great to see this happening in my old stomping ground, have the chance to catch up with some old friends and colleagues from the early days of my interfaith activities in Glasgow - and, hopefully, to make some new ones.

In Sonya's presentation at the launch she told the story of how this inspiring project got started (Sonya's words below are lifted wholesale from the Firstport website.

"This interfaith documentary project all started a few months before my mum, Dr Maureen Sier, left for America in August 2007. She'd received a UK/US Fulbright Interfaith Scholarship and I was very proud of her and eager to hear about everything she'd be doing. We were sitting at the dinner table late one night, mum was excitedly telling me about the amazing people she would be meeting in America; activists and scholars from around the globe who were at the forefront of interfaith learning. The plan was for the Fulbright scholars to share what they knew and explore ideas for the future. Each scholar would then go to a different grassroots project, to see what life was really like on the ground. Finally they would each return home and use their experiences to improve interfaith relations in their home country. 

"My mind was buzzing, this was really something - people who cared, who wanted to really make a positive difference. At the same time I started being plagued by the question - How were people going to hear about this? The answer came to be in a flash, literally a light bulb moment. I was convinced that if I could make a documentary about mum's journey, the people, places and organisations she met along the way it would be of interest to everyone, especially to young people who I think are the key to making real change in the world. At the same time as all this was happening I noticed whenever I watched the news, it was a doom and gloom, in fact depressing, broadcasters showed nothing but images of war, terrorism and violence, as one of the my interviewees says in the DVD 'if it bleeds it leads!' No wonder people feel hopeless!

"And so it was from this desire to make a difference, to show the world in a more positive light that Beyond Tolerance was born. I wrote a proposal and sent it to everyone I knew and sometimes people I didn't. Mum left for America and there was no sign of funding, and I was beginning to feel like perhaps it was not meant to be. Then all of a sudden some funding arrived from the Scottish Government, the Baha'i Council for Scotland, British Airways, and Scotland UnLtd. It was enough to take a small crew to America. 

"There we found wonderfully inspiring people especially youth, in fact so many people wanted to share their stories and experiences that we ended up with over thirty hours of footage. When I got home I knew the one thing that was missing was UK and Scottish voices, particularly those of young people and so another bout of filming took place and I was able to interview amazing young people from the UK. 

"The editing process was a long labour of love there was so much footage than we could ever have anticipated and I really wanted to make the most of it. Thankfully some further funding arrived from the Sikh Community and the Scottish Inter Faith Council an this allowed for the process to be completed. While the post production work was happening, work started on the education pack which could be used in schools, universities, religious groups, homes and youth centres. It had to be relevant to issues of diversity, full of activities that could be done anywhere from a small classroom to a large church hall and it had to be engaging for the participants. A tall order I hear you cry. Well, yes, but we had the assistance of many wonderful consultants from across the learning and artistic sectors. The final combination of interfaith documentary and education pack is something we're very proud of and it's already being used here in the UK."

The launch went without a hitch and the guest speakers included Dr Rose Drew, from the Glasgow University Centre for Inter-faith Studies, MSP Fergus Ewing and Haroon Ahmed, Magdalen Lambkin, Frances Hume and Dr Maureen Sier, all of whom are interviewed in the film. The atmosphere was one of hope, excitement for the future and positivity about the role interfaith can and does play in building good community relations. Many personal stories were told and MSP Fergus Ewing spoke of the continued need for education against sectarianism, bigotry and religious hatred. Dr Drew said, "This project is timely, education is vital and not just the academic level at the grassroots is really where it will make the biggest difference." There are great plans for Beyond Tolerance, already Sonya has been in discussion with Australia and New Zealand about it being used down under so it is with great expectations that we "watch this space" for further development of this inspirational project.