At the recent IFYC Conference, Eboo Patel, Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, spoke about World Faith, and specifically about the work happening in India under the World Faith’s National Director of India, Abdul Shakeel Basha.
A lot of people were at the IFYC Conference… That is why I am honored that Tikkun mentioned World Faith in their write-up of the conference. For the full article, please visit the article on Tikkun’s website.
While I was at the IFYC conference this past week, I reflected on the myriad of ways that the Interfaith Youth Core, and it’s awesome staff, has supported me as an interfaith leader, and World Faith as an organization.
First of all, as a member of the Fellow Alliance, they gave the NYU chapter of World Faith funding for interfaith service programs on campus.
Starting with the Fellowship, they have flown me four times to Chicago for trainings, meetings, and other leadership development programs. This training was wide in scope, including media engagement, dialogue training, and institutional and campus involvement.
I have had several media opportunities through IFYC, including being interviewed on Good Morning America, Chicago Public Radio, and an hour-long interview on the online radio show Embracing the Journey.
The contact network I have built both directly through IFYC, and as a product of the credibility of association with IFYC is immeasurable, but includes world-class leaders in the field, funders, and best of all, other activists who joined in the World Faith cause, including Joshua Stanton, Soofia Ahmed, Mustafa Abdullah, and Abdul Shakeel Basha, just to name a few.
Eboo has been a mentor to me since the end of my Fellowship, giving me insightful advice that I need to hear, when I need to hear it. He has been a true advocate, putting me in touch with people who otherwise probably wouldn’t give me the time of day. One of my favorite things is that Eboo can give me blunt criticism one moment (which I need and ask for), and yet gives World Faith shout-outs, further opening up possibilities.
The IFYC staff has played a vital role in our development in the previous few years. They each rotate between being a friend, psychologist, ally, and advocate, often more at one time. I probably email, call, or skype chat with an IFYC Staff member at least once a week, sometimes multiple times a week. Despite my constant questions or requests, they still respond quickly and with patience that I myself may be incapable of. This includes (but isn’t limited to) Megan Hughes, Amber Hacker, Cassie Meyer, Erin Williams, Hannah McConnaughay, Hind Makki, Jenan Mohajir, Zeenat Rahman, Charles Levesque, and April Kunze.
For anyone who is following World Faith, please take a look at the Interfaith Youth Core. I consider them a strong ally in the struggle for religious common action, and I hope that every World Faith leader is trained by IFYC in some capacity. Be sure to check out the IFYC website.
I am quite excited about the IFYC conference coming up next week in Evanston, Illinois. I will be leading a workshop on using technologies, and I hope to post my presentation on here afterwards, or just a link to it.
Also, I want to challenge myself to keep up with my blogging that I have so horribly ignored for the greater part of this year. Check in for updates!
this is my official write-up for the end of my Fellowship with the Interfaith Youth Core:
Reflecting on the past year as a part of IFYC Fellows Alliance is a difficult undertaking. Though the intent initially was likely based on trainings and campus work, I feel like the best parts of it were by-products of this intent, such as the great opportunities I was granted from the IFYC, and the potentially life-lasting friendships that started out of the fellowship.
On campus here at New York University I can definitely say that being a part of the IFYC Fellows Alliance assisted in my work, and that of our group World Faith. Starting out, we had great trouble getting recognized from the existing faith-oriented groups on campus, who simply did not take our mission seriously. That was acerbated by the fact that what interfaith events did take place on campus were usually dialogue-based, and faith-specific. However, between the connecting with the IFYC, other breakthroughs we had at World Faith, and the result of some of the great opportunities during the Fellowship, I was able to generate enough credibility to expand our programs, including co-programming with most of the larger faith-oriented groups on campus.
Our focus on bringing the discourse of religion back into the university also had institutional effects. After partnering with different groups on campus, we successfully lobbied the university to adopt chaplaincy, starting with four paid chaplains and several volunteers, giving religious guidance for Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus on campus. Furthermore, the president of New York University announced the creation of an Interfaith Center, while the administration works to purchase space for such a center, which will likely cost some $20-50 million dollars upon completion. Though I was not alone in this, nor World Faith the only force, but we were an integral part of the student mobilization for these changes.
Our programs also have grown in participation, while our first events were often attended by only a hand-full of participants, World Faith has grown to holding our Week of Interfaith Youth Service, in which 120 participants got involved in one of our four interfaith community service programs, including one day where over 60 participants volunteered city-wide in hospitals, parks, and homeless shelters. Furthermore, we teamed up with an initiative started by NYU students (who I was put in contact with their IFYC) to send ten religiously-diverse students to Lebanon to do service work with local students. Altogether, with the help of the Fellows Alliance, World Faith, under my leadership, has had a pivotal role in reshaping the role faith plays both in campus life and in service at New York University. With my passing the leadership on to younger students for next year, I expect that the impact will continue to develop.
For my personal development, I definitely feel that one aspect of the training given to Fellows by IFYC did help me greatly. Language, whether speaking to students, or speaking to the media, is imperative to effectively deliver your message, while catering to your audience. I feel the staff greatly influenced my tightening of language describing the mission of interfaith service throughout the year, including great advice given to me by Cassie Meyers and April Kunze during the Q Conference this April.
Also, being that I have chosen to take one the interfaith world professionally, IFYC has given me many great opportunities to exercise the advice and training that they gave. During the year I was interviewed on two radio shows, and Good Morning America with the Fellowship, with prepared me for other interview. Whether with IFYC’s help, suggestion, or mandate, I also attended six conferences during the year, during which at some I spoke, presented, or was publicly recognized for the my interfaith work during this year. Being in New York, they recommended for many great opportunities, including meeting with a Saudi Dean traveling as a visitor with the US State Department’s International Leadership program. These are just a few of the great opportunities the IFYC gave me during my year with the Fellow’s Alliance. Not only did they encourage further personal and professional development, they gave credibility to the work I have devoted so much time and effort to during the year.
The contact network I have developed with IFYC’s staff’s help is global and powerful, and I am sure that I will continue to utilize it as a develop World Faith further as an organization, but I do not believe that even the contacts are the most valuable aspect of the year. I believe the most lasting impact of the Fellow’s Alliance on my life with be that of personal connections.
The fellowship will most likely remind me of the mixture of parsing Bob Marley lyrics, discussing theological friction-points, and theorizing program ideas with Soofia Ahmed, Farah Qureshi, and Hafsa Kanjal. Or perhaps having some of the most blunt discourses possible with Jessica Kent and Anne Bouthilette. Even possibly being completely and obnoxiously unproductive and crazy with Joshua Stanton and Nadeem Modan, or holding jovial yet inspiring conversations with Austin Maness. Every Fellow represents more than a contact to me, but a memory and a friend. The staff of IFYC represents more than just human resource, but mentors and family. As a Christian, I believe that God is Love, and where Love is, God has blessed. This rubric elucidates the value of our work, as we are able to live as examples of what interfaith cooperative can look like, in a world of compassion and understanding.
As I conclude this paragraph, I am completely my year-long commitment to the Fellow’s Alliance. However, with the end of the Fellowship, I see the beginning of a career in making the interfaith movement, a long journey in personal growth in faith, and life-long friendships that will remind us why we even bothered to try to make a difference in the first place.
In Peace and Love,
Frank Fredericks
Former IFYC Fellow
So the big question everyone is asking me:
“Frank, What’s next?”
Other than praying that I don’t fail my final two classes and working hard at the Italian culture organization, I have reached an epiphany. I will work full-time on World Faith after I graduate. I will take the Lunge
If finding a job isn’t intimidating, most people think it is crazy to attempt to be self-employed. However I am going a step further and doing so with a non-profit. I also run a record label, but I very well may close it during the summer if it does not progress profitably. So I will begin working to secure funding for the project between now and graduation. If by graduation we have not raised sufficient funds for full-time support, I will continue with my summer plans of developing and building our projects in India, Lebanon, and Egypt.
In the meantime we are considering adding a new program to the World Faith network which will essentially be a music camp for Palestinian and Israeli children in Israel. We are exploring logistically how that association would take form. Our programming team at NYU has grown to over 10 as begin planning for our WEEK of Interfaith Service, coming this April. This will be my last event as Chapter President of World Faith NYU, and begin my journey of realizing the worthy ideal of World Faith.
That’s all for now. I wish I had more to write, but as the opportunities abound, ambiguity resides. In the next 6 weeks I will be in conferences in Boston, the CGI in New Orleans, Chicago, and on a panel at the Q Conference in NYC. I see that my past two posts, over a month old each, are still on the top list, so its nice to know someone else out there is reading. As long as that’s the case I will try to keep writing… 
Ok so for The Lebanon Project, I have been asked to spearhead the development of the interfaith dialogue curriculum, which may be televised in Lebanon during our time there (special thanks to IFYC for hooking me up with some supplemental materials). Rather than cut and paste the details of the process, which closely resembles IFYC’s, I thought I would push the idea of the progress of interfaith dialogue through conversations of understanding, and see what you all think of it as a progression:1. Shared Values: This is a typical starting point for most dialogues, and for many, often the ending point as well. This is helpful for building the framework for future conversations. IFYC’s particular curriculum focuses on shared values of service, which is key, but exploration into other shared values can still be beneficial.2. Shared Experiences: Despite varied history, culture, up-bringing, and other factors, everyone can find a similar thematical experience in their life with at least one person, as you engage the group as a whole you may find a web of connections. “LINK!” 
3. Identifying and Celebrating Differences: At many dialogue events, I found that the facilitators or panelists identified and explored the common values but failed to engage the complexities of the faith traditions. Stopping at such a superficial level denies the participants of the dialogue from accurately reckoning with the depth and complexity of each religion, in their dynamic manifestations of observance. Identifying the differences that exist in religious traditions not only opens the conversation to allowing people to engage themselves in understanding the concepts outside their own. Furthermore, the language and concepts present should not only instruct them on one particular faith tradition, but in fact inform them on a greater level of comprehension of their own faith. It is in this context that the participants will ask questions that they were too embarassed to ask (e.g. “so is communion cannabalism?”). It is only after these questions are addressed that truth growth and understanding can take hold in a great scale.4. Expression of Frustrations: Even with understanding can be frustration. This often time comes in the schism that occurs with dogma, and interpretations of such dogmas used and abused to serve political ends and the like. This definitely won’t be a conversation for the first encounter, but perhaps one after the previous steps have been confronted properly.5. What now? In the highest level, after recognizing similarities in both tradition and experience, identifying and celebrating differences, and reckoning such traditions with our own principles, can the opportunity for change. Not solely for the participants, but what change is needed in our communities, our faiths, our world. What should be the way of the world? how can we get there?There is obvious homage here to the IFYC curriculum, but the formulation of this, and the form I used to make it comes directly out of conversations with my fellow fellow, and now close friend, Soofia Ahmed. I didn’t include the part about listening to Bob Marley lyrics, but we can let them figure that one out on their own…
