History of Interfaith youth retreats

INTERFAITH YOUTH RETREATS (1999 – 2003)

In early 1999, a group of young people from the Bahai, Jain, Sikh and Brahma Kumari faith communities in London decided to put on an interfaith youth event for 18 to 25 year olds. This group met for six months, planning the content for the retreat, and inviting individuals from within their communities to attend.
In May 1999, a group of 40 young people from the Bahai, Quaker, Jain, Sikh, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian and BK communities came together in Oxford, and spent two days exploring how to live a spiritual life and how to deepen self-awareness through panel discussions, workshops, creative and reflective exercises.
The retreat was a huge success, and many people commented upon the closeness and warmth that was generated between participants during their time together.
An appetite had been created, and so in 2002 the group decided to hold a second retreat entitled “Encountering the Sacred”. Christian and Jewish young people joined the steering group, and a group of 55 young people spent a weekend together learning about each other’s faiths, and seeing how the lessons and experiences of their peers could help them in their own growth and development.

Following this retreat, individual participants formed very strong friendships with each other, and this lead to a number of initiatives and activities being jointly organised by faith groups to raise awareness and understanding of other faiths within their respective communities.
In 2003 the Prince’s Trust launched its “Respect” campaign, aimed at deepening cross-cultural awareness and understanding. The Head of Diversity at the Princes Trust approached the steering group, and asked them to hold another event, sponsored by the Prince’s Trust. The group agreed, and set about ensuring participation from all of the UK’s major faith communities.

In October 2003, Oxford once again played host to a 3-day retreat for 50 young people. The group wanted to provide an experience of the different faiths represented, and so each faith was asked to take the group through a ritual, experience or activity so the participants to taste the richness of that culture. In addition to these exercises we had a series of discussion-based workshops helping people tackle the challenges they faced in living a life of faith at home, at college or in the workplace.
There were two remarkable results that emerged from these retreats.

Firstly friendships were developed between young people of different faiths that were, in many cases, just as strong if not stronger and more supportive than friendships they had with people from their own communities.

Secondly many participants identified a shared desire to give a wider range of young people the chance to benefit from similar experiences in the future.
One of the ways that has happened is through AFAN…