Multi Faith Projects

Facilitating Interfaith Activity is a project aimed at fostering meaningful dialogue and collaboration among diverse religious communities. This initiative seeks to create inclusive spaces where individuals from different faith backgrounds can come together to share perspectives, promote understanding, and cultivate mutual respect.

Bringing together an expert team, passionate about supporting young people to develop a deep and confident faith, Unbelievable? Youth will produce engaging digital content and live events, answering the questions being asked by young people, and making it available on the social platforms they engage on. 

Premier’s Christian apologetics group already produces award winning programmes that build bridges of understanding, and encourage the exploration of faith, science and philosophy for a predominantly adult audience.  We strongly believe that young people also deserve the best of our thinkers, apologists and theologians so that they too can confidently engage in conversations about faith.

 

Black Voices are extremely grateful to the Westhill Endowment for their support of our annual Doorstep Carnival event which, this year, was called Musical Garden. The carnival took place in our beautiful Community Garden at Grosvenor Road Studios on the afternoon of Saturday 31 August.

Local communities representing many faiths, and none came together to share and enjoy performances from local children, artists, and musicians, including the World Music Youth Choir, the Reggae Choir and the Bond Street Singers. We were also delighted to be joined by a CBSO quartet as part of the CBSO in the City programme.

Project Harmony
Muslim Women’s Council is a registered charity based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Our vision is ‘for every woman, life with all its opportunities’, and our mission is to empower women for the benefit of society. Our project entitled ‘Project Harmony: Brewing Understanding’, is about developing an open space for women of Jewish & Muslim communities to engage in constructive dialogue about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

We hope to develop strong, lasting relationships based on commonalities and experiences among women from both communities, and to reduce stereotype, prejudice and misconceptions about each other’s communities.

Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Community and Christ Church Bexleyheath
Since July 2022, the Project Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Community (UOAC) in collaboration with Anglican Christ Church Bexleyheath have created a vital lifeline for Ukrainians in South East London. This initiative offers humanitarian aid, wellbeing support, language classes, and crafts sessions to help community members integrate into the UK, whilst still preserving and practicing their cultural heritage. Additionally, the community has established a Ukrainian School.

The Faith Guiding Course

The Faith Guiding Course is for those wishing to be trained to lead high-quality educational visits to places of worship. The Faith Encounter Programme has extensive knowledge of the faith sector and involvement with a wide range of faith-inspired organisations which has helped them to successfully engage collaboratively with diverse faith communities in Birmingham, the Midlands and further afield.

Their aims include offering customised courses in Faith Guiding to train Guides of all faiths to receive visitors with confidence and openness at their places of worship in the Midlands Region.

Hope Garden is a weekly therapeutic garden group in Sparkbrook ,Birmingham  open to men and women, many of whom are refugees. ,We often represent up to 15 different ethnicities in one session ,working and learning together to improve mental and physical wellbeing. We learn new skills eg composting and use of bokashi recently and grow and harvest our own fruit and vegetables . We have recently embarked on an ambitious wall art depicting our local surroundings.

Living Well with Difference
Living Well With Difference is a project in Luton, run by The Feast Youth Project in partnership with Youth Network. We are running dialogue workshops with school-age students with the aim of equipping them to have more constructive discussions about divisive issues.

The students will explore The Feast’s Guidelines for Dialogue as a framework for the kind of dialogue that leads to increased understanding of one another – dialogue that allows people to understand “the other” even if they can never agree with them, in order to create a platform from which they can work together to bring life into their community. They will then practice the art of constructive dialogue.

Project Playmaker Belfast
Project Playmaker is a new initiative from Onside Soccer which uses the power of football to improve the lives of children and young people.  Working in Belfast, we deliver free, cross-community football training sessions for children aged 7–14 years old, as well as a mentorship programme for young people aged 15-25, focusing on training to become community football coaches, gaining qualifications, work experience and moving towards paid employment.

Hidden Treasure: Interfaith Music and Poetry Festival
Hidden Treasure was a project to bring people together of different faiths across rural Herefordshire to share the richness of poetry and music. Held in a 6th century church and former pilgrimage site over 30 folk joined us from Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Baha’i, Sufi and Buddhist Faiths. Poetry spanning centuries were read by the attendees and interspersed with contemplative music played on instruments from around the world. 

The workshops ranged from Persian Calligraphy to Poetry & Art. The local school prepared a display of their own poetry after visiting a waterfall in Wales. And the lunch table reflected the traditions - and appetites – of the different faiths present!

The Pitch funds two short films each year, which use the Bible as a primary source of inspiration. The project supports and develops filmmakers from diverse backgrounds to hone their pitching and storytelling skills, ultimately helping them to break into the industry. The two selected short films are submitted to national and international film festivals, while a mentorship and leadership programme helps to improve the skills of those who are underrepresented in the film industry.

Soulful Sunday Mental Health Project
1 in 4 people in Bath will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year. 1 in 6 experience a common mental health problem (like anxiety and depression) in any given week. We’re running our Soulful Sunday ‘mindfulness’ get-together events to help address Bath's growing mental health epidemic.

There are never enough services available that can truly address the district's mental health issues. Our monthly programmes provide support in a non-judgemental, ‘all-welcome’ setting.

Interfaith Harmony, Encounter and Action

Our project aims at building strong, integrative relationships between minority and majority communities. It runs in several areas of the UK.

Celebrating Diversity – bringing together majority, minority, interfaith and multi-ethnic communities through the arts. We aim to build lasting positive community relationships using the skills of our artists, musicians, storytellers and community-builders. We invite local artistes to participate to foster equal cultural exchange and understanding in each locality.

Oxford Three Faiths Encounter – Spirit of Peace is part of this team, which delivers residential conferences and online events, bringing together Jews, Christians and Muslims for study, encounter, understanding, and lasting partnerships.

The Ladywood Interfaith Education Project (LIEP) is based in inner-city Birmingham. Initiated by St John & St Peter’s Parish Church, it is a partnership between four local places of faith and schools in the Birmingham area since 1999. Please see our page to find out more.

That’s how it really is

With over five decades of global experience in conflict zones, CHIPS is dedicated to fostering peace and reconciliation. We empower communities to instigate enduring grassroots transformations for restored peace. Since 2014, we've been actively engaged in Brixton, UK, focusing on countering youth violence through constructive avenues for young people. Filmmaking has proven to be a powerful avenue for Brixton's youth, teaching teamwork, collaboration, unity through the art of storytelling.

In 2021-2022, our youth crafted the poignant short film, "That's How It Really Is," shedding light on subjects like young carers, self-harm, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and child molestation. With support from Westhill Endowment, we are able to orchestrate eight screening events nationwide, encouraging dialogue, support, and proactive engagement among young people. These screenings provide an opportunity for the youth involved in the film to shape, develop, and facilitate critical conversations on these complex subjects, ultimately offering a platform for vulnerable exploration of the contemporary youth experience.

Campus Leadership Programme

The Campus Leadership Programme run by the Council of Christians and Jews equips university students from different faith backgrounds to run interfaith events on their campuses. We offer in-depth training, mentors and small subsidies for students to run their events.

Through the programme students learn how to run effective interfaith events by discussing ground rules to create brave spaces. They also gain understanding about people’s individual faith journeys through ‘speed faithing’.

A student’s response to our recent residential training was- “I feel much more confident now approaching interfaith spaces, and I feel ready to run my own programme on campus”.

Spiritual care in the community at end of life

At end of life, spiritual support helps people to explore and connect with what matters most to them and work through difficult existential questions about life and death. The Hospice of St Francis’s spiritual advisory team supports patients admitted to the Hospice’s Inpatient Unit to address these issues.

Thanks to this grant, the team will be able to extend this support to people receiving care at home ensuring 40 more people find peace and acceptance as they approach the end of life.

Faiths, Neighbours, Changemakers

The Smethwick Places of Worship Heritage Trail will be a chance for people to visit Smethwick, explore the diverse faith communities and learn about the history and current life of the different places of worship. There will be 3 trails of varying lengths that will incorporate Churches, Mosques, Gurdwaras and Mandirs, they will reveal something of the rich industrial history of the area and the way faith impacts daily life for people today. The trail will be launched in spring 2024 when people will be able to join organised walks or download maps and details and take the walk themselves.

Learning about good community relations in South Asian Heritage Faith Communities.

There have been tensions in Leicester between members of different communities during the past eighteen months. We have been working with a wide range of community groups and individuals to develop a clearer understanding of the issues and enable people of differing perspectives to encounter each other in a safe and supportive environment.

Thanks to funding from Westhill, we will develop this work further through a focused study day. We will hear in turn Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Christian perspectives on the situation, before facilitating a reflective discussion amongst participants as to how to maintain strong community relations.

Faces (Faiths Against Child Sexual Exploitation) are a Christian-Muslim charity with a mission to build resilience within faith communities against child sexual exploitation and other forms of harm. We view faith as contributing positively towards safeguarding, rather than being a risk factor as it’s often framed.

We offer training to faith communities and external organisations, including schools, police and local authority. Supported by our own research into young people’s experiences of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in schools, we’re providing training for educators to equip them to shape and deliver faith literate RSE.

Creative Green RE in Luton

This project gives Luton pupils the chance to be artistic in RE about climate change and justice issues, informed by a multi-faith panel of speakers. Beginning with a conference in Nov 2022, 6-8 Luton secondary schools are leading the project and sharing creative RE ideas on green issues across the town. At the next stage, primary pupils will also be involved and there are plans for an exhibition of pupils’ green spiritual art in the town’s public gallery.

Prayer Spaces
 
The Christian Education Project is based in the London Borough of Redbridge, with the aim of: “Serving schools; Inspiring Minds & Exploring Faith”.  They provide a variety of free services to schools, including Prayer Spaces.

Prayer Spaces are set up in a hall or other large space where pupils and staff of all faiths and beliefs can come to consider and respond to the key questions of life. Pupils move in a carousel between a number of tactile, interactive bases set around different themes.  Students are included in the planning stage, when possible, to help shape their school’s space.

Tales of Wonder, Wisdom and Humour

Religious Education in many schools is not seen as a priority and some non-muslim parents feel concerned when it has anything to do with Islam. Using multi-faith storytelling, with professional award-winning Khayaal Theatre, we hope to build bridges in the primary schools and generate a better understanding of not just Islamic but of other faiths and cultures too, highlighting mutual links and crossover between all traditions. Means of storytelling does not confront orthodoxy of religion; it rather seeks to inform participants in a culturally acceptable manner.

Interfaith learning

Christian and Muslim colleges in the UK produce many of our future religious leaders. They are also vital sites of influence for students’ engagement with, and attitudes towards, religion and worldview diversity. Yet the UK higher education sector is faced with barriers to student cohesion; research has uncovered prejudice towards students from minority backgrounds, and disputes around freedom of speech are widespread.

This project meets the urgent need to understand how students at UK theological colleges make sense of religious diversity. It is the first research of its kind to examine how college climates enable or impede positive attitudes towards those of different faiths and worldview perspectives.

RE Matters is a Newham business that seeks to support, inspire, and transform learning in schools. Student RE Matters is a group of young people interested in moral and religious issues from different backgrounds and cultures who get together each half term from different Newham secondary schools. It gives an opportunity for these students to discuss spiritual and moral issues that are important to them.

Peace Feasts in Bristol
Bridges for Communities is a small, innovative charity that seeks to help make Bristol a more welcoming, inclusive and fair city.  Our projects connect people of different cultures and faiths, in order to challenge stereotypes and prejudice and promote friendship and understanding.  A major part of our work is focused on helping refugees and asylum seekers to feel welcome and part of the community here.

Leicester Schools Peace Project

The Leicester Schools Peace Project is supporting the flourishing of our superdiverse city by creating a scheme of work for Peace Education from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 4.  This project is in partnership with Leicester SACRE and will be part of the New Agreed Syllabus for Leicester. 

The Hildegard Project

The Hildegard Project, builds on the work of the community, facing a rapidly changing world. We find ourselves in our 30th Anniversary Year and continue our dedication to the healing ministry.  Holy Rood House supports people of all ages in their physical, mental and spiritual health through recognising the interface between the gardens, arts, spirituality and justice, which get to the heart of this project.

Our therapeutic and theological work inform each other, challenging the community to respond to the health needs of individuals, especially children and young people, whose lives have been shattered due to the pandemic and who are struggling with the fears of climate change, war, and anxieties building up in their family lives. We are also seeking through this project to respond to the healing of communities and to the earth.

The Social Integration Project aims to bring a diverse community together.

The town of Midsomer Norton in Somerset has changed over the years. Previously a buzzing market town, more opportunities are needed for its increasingly diverse cultural groups to mix and interact with each other. A sizable Muslim community now meets weekly in the Town Hall for prayer, and the local Hindu community has just opened the area’s first ever Hindu temple. 

The Social Integration Project aims to engage with all religious groups, hoping to create links for members to engage with wider civic society. We also want to create an environment where people of all backgrounds feel a sense of pride in the town.

REQM Sparklers

The RE Council’s RE Quality Mark is pleased to announce this new project 'REQM Sparklers'.  Working with Westhill Endowment, we are compiling case studies of schools that benefited from grant support from Westhill between 2016 and 2019.

Interviews with teachers, pupils and students will be published here in 2022.  During the remainder of 2021, we will be organising events bringing teachers together online, and in local areas where feasible, to celebrate the REQM and to share the ‘fizz’ with others! If your school was involved in achieving an award during this period we would love to hear from you…..

The REC is working with Birmingham-based RE Today on a project to support the RE Syllabus writers, and curriculum developers, in their work on interpreting a Religion and Worldviews approach.  The Westhill grant will help fund the cost of an Expert Advisory Group.

Support of Afghan Refugees

Entraide was set up to support asylum seekers, refugees and other vulnerable migrants in Solihull and the surrounding area to facilitate their integration into society.

The project funded by Westhill aims to facilitate the integration of Afghan refugees resettled in Solihull and the surrounding area through befriending, leisure and recreational activities and employment support.

The Faith & Belief Forum exists to create a connected and supportive society where people of different faiths, beliefs and cultures have strong, productive and lasting relations. We work towards our vision by implementing three interconnected and strategic goals. Equipping Learners, Building Movement, and Projecting Voice.

Our Encountering Faiths & Beliefs workshops model interfaith dialogue and co-operation in action, whilst avoiding essentialisation through contextualising personal identity, faith and culture.

‘Multi-faith Approaches to Diversity and Racial Equality’ is a student led project which aims to develop pupil and teacher understanding of the approaches to diversity and racial equality across different religions and world views. Through pupil/teacher conferences a bank of high quality resources for all secondary schools in Wolverhampton are being developed.

The Loving Earth project: caring for the world we love.

The Loving Earth Project helps people engage with questions about the environment creatively, and without being overwhelmed, through an international community textile project and in other ways.

Travelling exhibitions of textile panels highlight some of the precious things at stake, and what some people are doing to help. These, and associated events, can inspire and empower further action. Please see our page for more information.