The Eden Area Interfaith Council represents diverse religious organizations in the East Bay that promote respect for all faiths and human rights for all. They are a collective of religious groups in the East Bay's Eden Area, including Hayward, Castro Valley, San Leandro, and San Lorenzo. They represent local Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and other faith groups. Their structure is that each congregation sends a representative -- it does not have to be a clergy member -- and then they have one person representing the ‘unaffiliated’ (those who have their own spiritual practice but who aren’t part of a congregation). The organization is all volunteers.
The Eden Area Interfaith Council was founded shortly after September 11, 2001 and reignited in December 2015 following a bias attack at Lake Chabot Regional Park in Castro Valley. Its mission is to promote understanding and respect for all faiths and work together towards human rights, peace, justice, civic change, and freedom of religion. It offers educational, cultural and activist opportunities to foster understanding between spiritual and cultural traditions and the greater community. They hold educational forums on various religious traditions. The group has a strong influence in the different member congregations and that is very helpful to solve problems. It’s not just tolerating each other; it is learning about each other -- if you tolerate without understanding, stereotypes are still there, which is why they have done a lot of educational events.
They have done presentations on local libraries on each of their faith communities and organized a Prayers for the Earth event that included children. They were asked to join an annual event with the City of Hayward called Light up the Season, which had traditionally had only Christian elements to it, and they brought the diverse faith communities of the Council to it. They also had displays of children's books for all the winter holidays, and have been included in the music program, and their participation keeps building. They have also held vigils and discussions/dialogues amongst themselves. They have had an impact on the greater community, which is what they wanted to do, and they (members of the Council) have also had an impact on each other, hooking each other up with different initiatives, etc.
