What would it look like if all around the world in the same week, people made an effort to reach out and have a conversation with someone from a different faith or religious background, shared over a meal?
This was the first task of the URI Youth Month Challenge!
At URI we work towards daily interfaith cooperation, practicing interfaith dialogue and respecting the differences among religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions. (URI Principle 3) Young people in URI are putting this into practice through a month-long challenge of tasks and activities to show the world that small actions matter in creating peace, justice and healing.
Participants of the challenge practiced listening, courage, and dialogue skills in reaching out across difference and sharing their experiences with another over a meal.
Anthonia Folashade Lawal, is a member of Building Blocks for Peace Foundation, Nigeria. She shared her reflections on the week 1 task here:
“I was able to invite a friend who I recently met to share a meal with at a restaurant. His name is Abubakar Abdulateef, a practitioner of Islam, a religion different from mine (which is Christianity).
During the course of eating the meal, we opened up a discussion where we spoke about how religion, faith and culture influence our daily lives.
Abdulateef was able to share some insights about his religion, so did I. He emphasized that Islam is a religion of peace and every adherent has to practice it too.
In his words, “Smile is a charity”, according to one of the teachings of Islam. This was what stood out for me during my conversation with him.
He buttressed this point by saying that we (both Christians and Muslims) leave a lasting impression in the heart of people when we wear a smile every day, and every moment of our lives. This is because the act of wearing a smile is capable of encouraging someone out there.
We ended the discussion happily and he extended his gratitude to the URI Team.
By sharing a meal with Abubakar, I was practicing United Religions Initiative’s Principle 3
which states that: “We respect the differences among religions, spiritual expressions and
indigenous traditions.”
Thanks to URI for this opportunity!
In Jarkata, Angie.P Latif shared a meal with a friend and reflects:
Spending time with this friend of mine always leads to rich conversations. But today, we shared about how the “rituals” part of our faiths are so much more than what the “activities” are.
The meaning behind Umrah which she just did a few weeks back, the meaning behind Holy Communion than just blood and body of Christ.
We also shared how FAITH is not only religion, it is the foundation of our beliefs. Such a great day.
In Argentia, Romina Bello got together with a group of friends which included two young people from Senegal. They learnt about senegalese culture together, while enjoying good food and laughter! Romina writes:
“El día martes 13 nos reunimos 5 argentinos y dos senegaleses a compartir una cena basada en la cultura senegalesa. De cena hubo "CHEP BOU POULE" (arroz, pollo y verduras). Ellos comen con la mano y quieren que también lo hagamos nosotros también, intentamos pero aunque parece facil no lo es. Así que tocó cuchara para nosotros. Después compartimos sobre su religion que es MUY diferente a la nuestra, son musulmanes pero no los musulmanes árabes %100 sino que ellos solo utilizan un extracto del coran ya que hay cosas que no comparten con los árabes.
Un punto super curioso es que ellos pueden tener 4 mujeres viviendo en la misma casa, eso sí tienen que mantener económicamente a las 4 por igual. La primer mujer es la que más 'derechos' tiene ya que es quien tiene que aceptar el resto de las mujeres. Tienen 5 rezos al día que tienen que cumplir si o si, de hecho usan una aplicación del celular para esto.
Su idioma se llama wolof, súper complicado pero estuvimos aprendiendo un poco, nos comunicamos super bien ya que ellos hablan bastante bien el español”
Muy contenta de compartir con ellos, su comida muy rica y nos reímos mucho.
In India Mr. Mangesh Pol from India Pune invited Mr. Bernard Omuse originally from Uganda ( Christian faith ) and he shares:
Oh my god it was a wonderful experience having dinner with him and one person he knows as his friend.
We spoke about our faith values it went very deep. Then we spoke about other religions too and about URI How some organizations work for Interfaith and all At last we spoke about what is love in our religion importance of love in our faith. We came to know that In every religion there is love but love has no religion and we smiled to see each other reaction I feel very blessed to have this conversation and to understand deeply the human Thank you URI for this concept.
Pastor John, a Christian and Imam Hussain Makonjuola all from Kaduna in Nigeria had a conversation about interreligious cooperation. Pastor John reflects:
The discussion was on three (3) basic topics: Dinning with Christians as a Muslim, fostering justice among faith traditions, inspiring people for faith practices towards peaceful coexistence and action points.
Dinning with Christians as a Muslim: As an Imam I must tell you that I have nothing against eating with Christians, I love their food and I can eat with them at anytime especially as I come from a family that is mixed with Christians.
The only thing I may not eat is any meat that is not slaughtered or forbidden in Islam but apart from that, I must tell you that I love all kinds of food especially as there's no one defined food for Muslims and another one for Christians. We are all human and so our kind of food is the same and I must confess.
Through this task, participants learnt not just about about different food preferences across traditions, but also about common values and similarities across traditions too.
As Musoki Rusia from Uganda said,
“We all realized that we have some low opinion about some religions till you meet the person from that religion and share. We also learnt that no matter the faith we serve one God and that means that we should live like brothers and sisters and go away from hurt.”
Well done to all who completed the first task! You can follow along with the challenge on our social media @uriglobal or sign up here.
