What’s in your hand to do?
Over the past few months, the FaithAction team has had many opportunities to be out and about, either directly supporting and encouraging the work of faith groups in different communities, or advocating for and raising up the voice of faith, drawing attention to the work that so many of you do, day in and day out!
On Friday 15th May, FaithAction’s National Executive Director Daniel Singleton visited Brighton and Hove Faith in Action. We explored various different areas of interest including developing local partnerships, the Civil Society Covenant, and the findings of our recent evaluation of 10 years of the Faith Covenant.
Conversations with the BHFA highlighted the current areas of concern for local faith communities, particularly community tensions and hatred directed towards Jewish and Muslim communities were the areas of greatest pressure being felt.
Of course, these are not uncommon concerns and they mirror what we have heard from different parts of the FaithAction network and across faith communities in the UK. In response to the growing sense of community tensions and to get a picture from perspective of faith organisations, we will be launching a short survey ‘Taking the Temperature’ this week!
Please watch for this in your inboxes! And do please share with others! These questions will give us a valuable snapshot and will take less than 5 minutes to complete. (And please be assured that the survey is completely anonymous!)
Returning to the topic of Brighton, we then looked at what could be done in multi-faith settings, with care take to recognise the concerns and experiences expressed. There was a particular note made of circumstances outside of our control, both nationally and internationally, that have such a strong effect on those within local networks.
These situations are not easy. There must always be an opportunity to express difficulties that emerge in our relationships . However, there are often local initiatives which different groups can come together on. There may be no clear agreement on events overseas but, at least in our towns, cities, and communities, we can find causes to work together in support of and we can continue to share knowledge and learning between different faith groups.
The Million Acts of Hope campaign this week, is just one of many examples of positive campaigns which can bring people together with shared endeavour.
Sometimes, we must turn aside from the big issues, ones we will not have immediate agency over, and instead look at what is in our hands to do—what do I have before me that I could change, that could help improve my local community, that I could work with others in shared pursuit?
We would love to hear about what you are doing to positively affect the community about you, drop us a link editors@faithaction.net
…and remember to complete and share our survey ‘Taking the Temperature’
