Diverse Youth Find Understanding Through Service at National Days of Interfaith Youth Service
April 25th, 2006
Chicago - April 25, 2006 - This past weekend, in over 30 communities worldwide, 4,000 young leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jain and Sikh traditions came together to organize and participate in events of interfaith dialogue and cooperative service. They were taking part in the third annual National Days of Interfaith Youth Service, coordinated by the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). IFYC is a Chicago-based international non-profit that seeks to build a movement, which encourages religious young people to strengthen their religious identities, foster interreligious understanding and serve the common good.
Chicago - April 25, 2006 - This past weekend, in over 30 communities worldwide, 4,000 young leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jain and Sikh traditions came together to organize and participate in events of interfaith dialogue and cooperative service. They were taking part in the third annual National Days of Interfaith Youth Service, coordinated by the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). IFYC is a Chicago-based international non-profit that seeks to build a movement, which encourages religious young people to strengthen their religious identities, foster interreligious understanding and serve the common good.
Accounts from sites around the world reveal that the weekend deeply affected these young people and their communities. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, nearly a hundred students served on seven different service sites. Nick Price, a key organizer for the project, explained, "We are all here because we are called by our faith traditions to help other people. That is the promise of religion - that there is no option to be selfish."
In New Orleans, young people gathered for interfaith dialogue and to help citizens vote in the first mayoral election since Hurricane Katrina. Adam Bronstone, of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, reflected, "For a city where the faiths get together, but not on a formal basis, this weekend was a really good start. And we’re going to take advantage of this momentum."
At Emory University, where students put together relief supplies for victims of Hurricane Katrina, organizer Fareen Jiwani described the conclusions of their interfaith dialogue, "A natural disaster doesn’t target different faiths - it targets an entire community. By doing this project, we were each able to identify with some of those we were serving, even as we were learning to communicate with those were different from us."
"The National Days of Interfaith Youth Service provided a wonderful opportunity for honest, sincere, intimate, heart-to-heart and appreciative sharing of ideas, dialogue and problem solving, all in an atmosphere of trust, friendship, love, enthusiasm and cooperative creativity," Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba explained of a 3-day project in Jos, Nigeria, where over 200 young people gathered for interfaith dialogue and to beautify the city.
The Chicago National Days of Interfaith Youth Service brought over 30 youth from eight different Chicago-area colleges and universities for an "Interfaith Immersion Weekend." IFYC created the weekend not only to lead youth in interfaith service and dialogue, but to train these students to become leaders themselves. The weekend included two projects that served Chicago’s Somali-Bantu refugee population and a series of workshops that taught students everything from how to plan an effective interfaith service project to how to include different religious communities in interfaith work. Students developed immediate action plans for their campuses and personal visions for their leadership in the interfaith youth service movement.