Interfaith Festival Forges Connections Between Local Faith Groups
Full house turns out to yesterday’s Interfaith Festival hosted by IMSS
Prince George, BC – More than 80 people attended an Interfaith Festival hosted by the Immigrant & Multicultural Services Society yesterday…
The event featured presenters from seven local faiths and was the culmination of a year-long provincially funded project aimed at bringing the groups together to create understanding.
Program Facilitator, Riffat Shahnawaz, says although there were some challenges right up to the last minute in coordinating schedules and speakers, the festival was a concrete example of the teamwork that has evolved. "We worked together – Hindu, Muslim, Sikhs, Christians, Baha’i, and Maori – we decided as a team, ‘Okay, let’s talk about our golden rules, we’ll talk about our religions,’ so you can see we can work together.’"
Shahnawaz says the next step is to move from talking about our differences to focusing on our similarities. "We are all Canadians, we are humans, we have the same kinds of needs, family values – we all love our kids, we all respect our parents/elders," she says. "Instead of talking about differences all the time, let’s find the similarities between us and be friends with each other."
In looking at festival attendance as one measure of the project’s success, Shahnawaz is pleased, saying she was told to expect about 50 people based on past events, but all 82 seats were filled. IMSS is hoping to build on that momentum with a future Interfaith project focused on youth aged 18 to 30. Proposals have been submitted to both levels of government, with hopes the new project could begin before the end of the year, or in early January.
Comments
Is that woman in the blue top looking (posing) for the camera Shirley Bond?
I wouldn’t be surprised…
If it is her … I wonder what faith she is representing?
Any faith that votes Liberal I would think.
Another pathetic post from people#1…Shirley works tirelessly for this region and sacrifices lots of family time. The ndp lost get over it.
What do you have to say about Sherry Ogasawara’s photo that appears an article or two above this one.
Actually if Shirley showed up and supported the Run for the Cure, I would say great to see her at a “public” function, particularly one that battles breast cancer!
Check out the lady with the pink scarf!!!!
blog/view/29710/1/celebrating+%27strides%27+against+breast+cancer+with+run?
from the link
It is always an emotional morning for me and my family and my friends that are here today because there can’t be anything more difficult than hearing that diagnosis,” says Bond, shown at left ‘warming up’ with her grandson.
People#1 must be getting tired of the taste of crow by now.
Baa, ha, ha, a new “expanded” story on the Run for the Cure. Nice to see “photo op” Shirley there, don’t approve of mixing religion with politics through, but that’s not going to stop anytime soon.
I see the Tea Party (christian conservatives) have shut down the US government. Reminds me of the scorpion and the frog story; where a scorpion wants to cross a stream and asks for a ride on the frogs back. As long as you don’t sting me, then yes I will says the frog… half way across the stream the scorpion stings the frog, and the frog says; why did you sting me? Now we both will drown! The scorpion says; I can’t help it, I am a scorpion, it in my nature.
And so we see the Tea Party (christian conservatives), because they could not get their Republican party elected, hauling everyone down… got to be “fanatical” to do that hey? ;-)
So, I have not seen People#1 come back to write those words here yet since finding out that Shirley was at the cancer event.
It is one thing to write them before, in a mocking fashion, another to write them afterwards.
So politicians are not allowed to go to church?
And if the media happens to be there any politicians present are supposed to remove themselves.
Get real!!
“The event ……… was the culmination of a year-long provincially funded project aimed at bringing the groups together to create understanding.”
The province is not supposed to give funds to religious groups?
That depends, gus, was Shirley there as a christian and regular church goer, or was she there as a political representative? If she is not a christian or regular church goer, then why would she be there?
Meh, politics in it’s present form has me jaded, particularly when they mix it like the Tea Party and what they are doing in the US.
I never thought religion was about POWER, but it most definitely is!
Harper is a member of the Evangelical Church and is a regular church goer, maybe the Feds can fund them as well? But why stop there, lets have certain political parties fund all religions and funnel money to them in exchange for their votes… lets have a free-for-all, the “Office of Religion” is just a start…
Here is how to save Canada’s governance structure and maintain it’s integrity; separate religion from politics, ban corporate/business donations, and ban union donations.
Do that and maybe “people” will actually start taking an interest in politics, maybe even show up and start voting??? Try something, anything, because I see way too many “people” disillusioned with politics!!!
Even though he is a christian, really admire ex-president Jimmy Carter because of his views;
“There’s no doubt that the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party. And there’s been a melding in their goals when it comes to the separation of church and state. I’ve always believed in the separation of church and state.” ~ Jimmy Carter
Maybe we should all believe the same?
“was Shirley there as a christian and regular church goer, or was she there as a political representative”
You do not get the whole idea, do you People#1!!??
You did not read this: “We worked together – Hindu, Muslim, Sikhs, Christians, Baha’i, and Maori – we decided as a team ….”
This is an interfaith group. Why does she have to be a Christian? In fact, those faiths are the ones which were included in the workgroup … budhists are not mentioned, neither are shintoists, taoists, gnostics, jews and likely hundreds of other “organized” religions.
“Harper is a member of the Evangelical Church and is a regular church goer, maybe the Feds can fund them as well”
The purpose was not to fund individual groups!!!!
The purpose was to fund an effort for the different religious groups to get to understand each other a bit better given that we have such ignorance, as you are displaying by your posts, of each other in a multicultural society.
In case you did not know it, some people are driven by religion much more than others. The religion they practice is intimately woven into their culture. The association has the word Multicultural contained in its name.
Starting to get it???
“Here is how to save Canada’s governance structure”
This is NOT about governance! Do not make it about governance!!!
This is about funding a project to bring groups together to create understanding.
Get it!!!
You do not think we need that???? Try reading some of the posts on here, some of the things that are going on in the community, the country, the world.
We are a multicultural society. Maybe you want to bring back the days when the government took all the kids from all such groups and put them into residential schools to brainwash them and give them the only true religion, Christianity.
from Carter: “the Christian right has gone to bed with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party”
People#1 …. Separating the governance structure of a religion, the institution of the religion, and the governance structure of the state is one thing. THAT is what is meant by the phrase of separation of church and state.
That does not mean that people are not religious. That does not mean that the culture and social beliefs of a person are not intimately intertwined with their religion.
That “whole” person is the person who votes. It is no rocket science to understand that those who are very fundamentalist about their religion are also fundamentalist about their politics.
Just because it is Carter saying something does not mean that Carter is right or that Carter does not understand. He has his way, we all have ours.
The day when a Cardinal of the Catholic Church or other person of governance rank in an organized religion gets elected to a government position at any level in this country, I will start to be concerned.
For instance, Rabbis can be and are members of the Israeli Knesset. I do not know whether a priest, or a rabbi for that matter, was ever a member of a municipal, provincial or federal governing body.
At that low level, I would actually not have an objection. However, I doubt anyone would be able to get elected pother than in a small, religious community such as one might find in rural Quebec.
Seek and ye shall find exercise ….
“Robert Frederick Drinan, S.J. (November 15, 1920 â January 28, 2007) was a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, lawyer, human rights activist, and Democratic U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
He was also a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center for the last twenty-six years of his life.”
“In 1970, Drinan sought a seat in Congress on an anti-Vietnam War platform, narrowly defeating longtime Representative Philip J. Philbin, who was serving on the House Armed Services Committee, in the Democratic primary. Drinan went on to win election to the House of Representatives, and was re-elected four times, serving from 1971 until 1981. He was the first of two Roman Catholic priests (the other being Robert John Cornell of Wisconsin) to serve as a voting member of Congress”
—————————-
There you go …. it’s been done in the USA.
Now for the interesting part ….. Carter was president from 1977 to 1981 … which partially coincides with the service of Drinan from 1971 to 1981.
So here we have Carter accusing the right religious groups involved to deeply with the religious right Republicans, when he had a Democrat priest serving in his own government.
Short term memory … happens to older people. ;-)
Ready for this one?
Pro-Abortion, Pro-Homosexual Marriage Catholic Priest Elected to Canadian Parliament
“REPENTIGNY, November 28, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Rev. Raymond Gravel, a Catholic priest, who has scandalized Canadian Catholics for years by condemning Vatican pronouncements against homosexual marriage and pronouncing himself publicly in favour of abortion, has been elected to Parliament, representing the Bloc Quebecois in Repentigny Quebec.”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2006/nov/06112804
Did I call that one right? ;-)
I am sure he rejoiced ever day with the new Pope heading the Catholic Church.
Remember, the majority of people in the world are religious. One cannot remove the religion of an individual from the being who sits in a governance seat. One cannot get rid of the fact that people who get elected are public people and popular people. They are not the stay-at-homes of society.
The division of church and state has not been breached by the fact that a priest or a rabbi can run for political office and win.
You are going to tear out a knee back pedaling that hard people#1.
The good work that Shirley did while education minister shows as you got schooled on a Sunday.
johnnybelt- people#1’s weekly menu with props to Bubba.
Anyway, like I was sayin’, crow is the fruit of people#1 land. She can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, crow-kabobs, crow creole, crow gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple crow, lemon crow, coconut crow, pepper crow, crow soup, crow stew, crow salad, crow and potatoes, crow burger, crow sandwich. That- that’s about it.
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