Interfaith Week 2009

Interfaith Week 2009 – Events Round up stories and photos

Events Listing for the South East of England

England will have its first ever Interfaith Week between 15–21 November 2009. The week will include and highlight activities organised by bodies across England and here in SE England where SEEFF seeks to:

promote good inter faith relations
highlight the contribution of faiths to building community

increase understanding between faiths and wider society

The Week is being facilitated by the Inter Faith Network for the UK, working with its member bodies (which includes South East England Faiths Forum), in partnership with the Department for Communities and Local Government, in consultation with the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Local Government Association and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. CLG is also liaising, as appropriate, with other public agencies and helping facilitate publicity.

The Week will not be a ‘top down’ Week with a programme of centrally organised or officially ‘badged’ events. It will be a week in which faith groups and their places of worship, inter faith bodies, schools and institutions of further and higher education, local authorities and other public agencies as well as others are encouraged to hold their own events and to highlight the importance of inter faith understanding and cooperation and greater awareness about the faith communities and their engagement in building community.

The possibility of the Week being marked in Wales as well as in England is under consideration. An annual Inter Faith Week already takes place in Scotland.

Background to the week

In July 2008 the Department for Communities and Local Government published Face to Face and Side by Side — a Framework for Partnership in our Multi Faith Society. This report presented the Government’s strategy for encouraging the further development of inter faith activity in England. It set out how faith communities, Government and wider society can work together, at all levels, to bring people with different religions and beliefs together.

The framework drew on research and on the responses to a three-month public consultation, and contained examples of effective practice, practical suggestions for communities and local authorities and links to further sources of support and guidance.

Face to Face and Side by Side contained a number of undertakings by Government. One of these was to work in partnership with the Inter Faith Network for the UK to organise an Inter Faith Week in 2009. The Inter Faith Network links national faith community representative bodies; national, regional and local inter faith bodies and educational and academic bodies with an interest in inter faith issues. SEEFF is part of this network on behalf of SE England.

The Inter Faith Network’s involvement springs from the aims, shared by its over 160 member bodies, of promoting greater understanding between people of different faiths in the UK. In its response to the consultation for Face to Face and Side by Side it proposed an Inter Faith Week, drawing from experience of a successful Week of this kind held in Scotland.

The Week is being held on a ‘one off’ basis, although the option for faith and inter faith bodies to hold a similar Week in future years will be considered after this year’s Week has taken place.