As part of our ongoing engagement, we collaborated with Year 9 students at The Radclyffe School to organise a presentation evening for families. During this event, the students shared their work from throughout the year, focusing on the similarities between various faiths.
The Interfaith Forum had the opportunity to highlight these similarities and further enrich the evening by featuring a Nasheed artist, who used poetry to discuss religious themes. The event was well-attended, with 120 people participating.
Representatives of the Muslim, Christian, and Hindu faiths to offer an overview of their beliefs and practices and discuss the human and ethical values they share. The response to the panel was overwhelmingly positive:
"The interfaith forum organised for a panel of religious representatives to come and speak at our school as part of the Faith in Oldham project. Students choose topics they are interested in, pose relevant questions to the panel, and then use this information to create presentations. The students gained so much from experiencing these panels. The panel members were able to answer their questions in detail, and were able to see interfaith in practice in the way in which panel members support one another and show an interest and appreciation for each other's faiths. Many students arrived thinking that there are only differences and left understanding that there are so many things which unite these faiths.
Students attending said -
"I enjoyed the interfaith panel because they spoke about how different religions came together and united in Oldham to keep the peace." - Zianna
"I enjoyed hearing the amount of knowledge they had about different religions." - Imtiaz
"A very enjoyable time. It was very informative and eye-opening." - Ayaaz
"I really liked this experience because it was very different as it showed how different religions can come together to share their similarities and differences." - Kayaan
"This was my first panel so I really enjoyed it because of the cooperation I saw between the members." - Zainab
"It was very educational and inclusive." - Lucy
"The experience was fun and interesting." - Che
"It was good as we got to see different perspectives." - Isabella