Shetland Inter Faith Group

The Shetland Inter Faith website can be found at www.shetlandinterfaith.org.uk. Contact details for the group can be found on the website.

Inter Faith Week Activities : November 2009                                                           

As ever we had a very varied and interesting programme of activities during Scottish Inter Faith Week. Iain Stewart, Church of Scotland Inter Faith Worker and Frances Hume from Scottish Inter Faith Council helped to create a programme covering Shetland College, four High Schools, a primary school, Shetland Rotary and the Church of Scotland Presbytery. They were ably assisted by two members of SIFC's youth steering committee, Haroon Ahmed and Kumanga Andrahennadi.

Our programme began with a talk to the Rotary in which Haroon and Frances described the work of the Scottish Inter Faith Council. Iain Stewart then delivered a talk to students at Shetland College explaining the benefits of inter faith dialogue and the role that the church is playing in this.

This was followed by leading classes at Skeld Primary school for Primary 1 - 7. The younger children were given a demonstration on Buddhist meditation by Kumanga who enchanted them with her singing bowl. The older children learnt about combatting racism by playing a game with potatoes. As one pupil said "we are all humans just as potatoes are all potatoes"!

After the visit to the primary school the group met for a meal with Shetland Inter Faith Group members. The trip was topped of with an inter faith youth conference that was organised for 80 pupils from four Shetland secondary schools. The conference looked at the impact, the role and the value of faith for young people in Scotland today.