Making Dialogue Effective, Panel Discussion 2 - Effectiveness at the grassroots: seeking the personal and the genuine

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:45 in Discussion Forums

Tags:

Where: Dialogue Society, London
Panelists:

Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, Chairman, Muslim Council for Religious Harmony UK; Executive Member, World Congress of Faiths.
Samuel Klein, Co-Director, the Coexistence Trust
Sarah Perceval, Storyteller

Abstract

Panellists engaged professionally with intercultural and interfaith dialogue will focus on the quality of the relationships initiated through this dialogue. How can dialogue go beyond superficial interactions to promote deeper understanding and genuine relationship?

Confirmed Panellists:

Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, Chairman, Muslim Council for Religious Harmony UK; Executive Member, World Congress of Faiths.
Imam Sajid has been the Imam of Brighton Islamic Mission since September 1976 and is Link Officer for Brighton and Hove Interfaith Contact Group (IFCG) for National and International Inter-faith matters. He is Chairman of the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony UK (MCRRH), President of Religions for Peace UK and Deputy President of European WCRP -Religions for Peace.
Samuel Klein, Co-Director, the Coexistence Trust
Samuel is Executive Co-Director of The Coexistence Trust and a research fellow in the Faiths & Civil Society unit at Goldsmiths University where he is academic advisor to the national Religious Literacy in Higher Education Leadership Programme.

Prior to his work with the Coexistence Trust, Samuel has been Community Director of the Saatchi Synagogue in London, Director of the ‘Champions of Change’ leadership initiative at the United Synagogue of Great Britain & The Commonwealth and lecturer in Community Development and Religion and Public Life at Westminster University and Birkbeck College respectively.

Samuel holds degrees in Theology and Religious Studies, History of Art, Psychotherapy & Counselling Psychology and is currently studying Conflict Resolution & Meditation (MSc) at Birkbeck College, London.
Sarah Perceval, Storyteller
Sarah Perceval works as a storyteller specializing in sacred stories from all religions. She develops and records stories for adults and children and her performance work centers on interfaith and community cohesion events. Sarah has an extensive background as an actress, puppeteer and corporate communication skills trainer, and started sacred storytelling to unite her creative and spiritual paths. She says “The devil may have the best tunes, but religion has all the best stories.”

Sarah is the Bahá’í representative on the executive committee for Week for Prayer for World Peace and has had a book published, ‘Sacred Earth’, a compilation of quotations from world religion about nature.
Click to go to Sarah Perceval Website

Introduction to Panel Discussion Series

A series of panel discussions examining the question of how to make intercultural dialogue work. Those working with intercultural and interreligious dialogue at the community or professional level face a range of challenges regarding its effectiveness. We are asked, or ask ourselves, such questions as:

Does what we do make or contribute to a tangible difference to society in any way?
Does our work, whether directly or otherwise, reach beyond the sympathetic to those whose attitudes and behaviour are an actual threat to peace and social cohesion?
Are the relationships that our work initiates across cultural or religious boundaries of a meaningful and lasting kind?
Is our work part of something broader that is capable of effecting change on a grand scale?

This series is intended to occasion focused and constructive discussion of such questions among a range of people concerned with relationships between different cultural, religious or social groups, in their professional lives or at the community level.

Findings and conclusions will be published. It is hoped that the series will be replicated at three independent UK branches of the Dialogue Society, allowing us to draw on a wider range of perspectives in collating findings.

Aims and Objectives

To encourage interprofessional dialogue, interaction and cooperation between people working on intercultural/ interreligious dialogue, peace and social cohesion.
To foster dialogue between people engaged with dialogue at the personal or community level, and those concerned with the same questions in a professional capacity.
To explore and clarify the questions of what effectiveness in dialogue is, and whether and how it can be measured.
To find a range of creative and practical answers to the question of how dialogue can be made effective by

identifying and promoting current best practice and
identifying and promoting promising future possibilities.
To share these answers among all participants of the series and more widely.

The Topics:

1. "Effectiveness" in Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue: Can it be defined? How do we measure it?
30/11/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Mehri Niknam, MA, MBE, Executive Director, the Joseph Interfaith Foundation.
Simon Keyes, Director of St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.
Dr Andrew Smith, Scripture Union.

2. Effectiveness at the grassroots: seeking the personal and the genuine
07/12/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, Chairman, Muslim Council for Religious Harmony UK; Executive Member, World Congress of Faiths.
Samuel Klein, Co-Director, the Coexistence Trust
Sarah Perceval, Storyteller

3. Effectiveness in dialogue for conflict transformation
14/12/2010
Confirmed speakers:

Dr Diana Francis, Conflict Transformation Facilitator, Trainer and Consultant.
Dr Marwan Darweish, Senior Lecturer at Coventry, Expert in Peace Processes and Conflict Transformation.

4. Skills in dialogue: cultivating effective listening and empathy.
09/02/2011
Confirmed speakers:

Lisa Cumming, Programme for a Peaceful City, Bradford University Peace Studies Department
Justine Huxley, Interfaith Projects Coordinator, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace
Jill Adam, Executive Director, Level Partnerships; previously Head of the School of Education and Professional Development at Leeds Metropolitan University.

5. Becoming a dialogue movement: what can dialogue learn from other movements?
02/03/2011
Confirmed speakers:

Danny Chivers, Performance Poet Involved in the Environmental Movement
Dr Nicola Montagna, Middlesex University

6. Preaching to the unconverted: how can dialogue reach the disengaged, the prejudiced and the hostile?
Confirmed speakers:

Stephen Shashoua, Director, Three Faiths Forum
Alison Seabrooke, Community Development Foundation
Prof Ian Linden, Director of Faiths Act, Tony Blair Faith Foundation / Professor of Religious Studies, SOAS
Canon David Porter, Canon Director for Reconciliation Ministry at Coventry Cathedral

Guests are warmly invited to attend as many of the sessions as possible to contribute to an ongoing process of focused reflection over the course of the series.