Ciao All!
Just a quick note that World Faith’s new Facebook page is up. We will begin using our group less and less and promote through our Facebook page more as it’s easier to manage.
Letter from Shakeel 28 August , 2009
Shakeel is our awesome National Director of India. Starting a few months ago, he has switched to running World Faith India full-time. He sent me a letter explaining the work they are doing, so far with only $1,000 and I wanted to share it with all of you:
Dear Frank,
Just wanted to update you on recent events in India.
The funds has been transferred. that;s a great relief bcos my team was not able to go on streets for street contacts bcos of lack of money plus the non-formal education center we started was also in danger closing down. BIG THANKS for sending the funds. With this money we were able to buy some books and stationery for the children ( from ragpicking community) attending this education center.
Now we are having 7 members working actively for world faith India Chapter- Haq A Campaign for the rights of Homeless. Nobody is paid salary we all are working for it for free. the names are shakeel, akbar, nandlal, radheshyam, jaiprakash, zenab and lalit. we also have a working group of 21 members which met once a month.
That’s some update. Please let me know any developments from your side on the funding thing. The Indian Chapter is really growing in a very short time. Without any institutional support it will be difficult to sustain it for longer period.Now we need a office, a helpline to deal with crisis, some staff to handle emergencies arising at night, So there are many things where we are not able to intervene due to lack of funds.
Do keep me posted on any development.
thanks and regards,
Shakeel
Photos from informal school:
Days of Interfaith Youth Service 2009 12 April , 2009
As this time of year rolls again, World Faith is glad to announce that we are continuing to expand. We have several chapters in development in India, and we are expecting new locations to take part in the Days of Interfaith Youth Service this year.
I know that I am hardly blogging these days, and that my posts have been infrequent, short, and more of a World Faith update system than a blog about relevant issues in the interfaith movement. Give me some time and I will remedy the situation. I just moved, am working several jobs while still developing World Faith, and find little time to keep up some of the small things. Thank you to those of you who still read these!
Article in The Journal Of Interreligous Dialogue 9 March , 2009
Ciao All,
Please see my article in the Journal of Interreligious Dialogue here:
This publication is led by a great group of people, including my close friend Joshua Stanton, who I have met in my journey of interfaith work.
A Recent Conversation 17 December , 2008
So, a friend and former roommate of mine, Daniil Leiderman, posted a valid and often unanswered question very eloquently on World Faith’s new Cause on Facebook. He has been the source of many great conversations that force me to articulate myself in different ways, and so I felt it would be interesting for you who read this. I attempted to respond with my personal thoughts, but I think this is a discussion that will continue on without a clear answer, but is still worth exploring.
Daniil Leiderman wrote:
True understanding between faiths is an admirable and worthy goal which has numerous precedents in human history. However the trouble comes in as religions seem to go through cycles of moderation and extremism.
In cycles of extremism seemingly moot issues become perevalent and make open discourse difficult–i.e. the Biblical and Koranic prohibition on idolatry, while apparently anachoronistic, became a major issue in the last decade or so beginning when the Taliban destroyed ancient statues of the buddha causing world wide protest in Christian and Muslim countries alike, followed by protests around the issue of Mohammed being visually represented in a Dutch political cartoon. How does one accomodate each dogma along with each possible degree of religious fervor–from the tolerant to the statue-exploding, to the western (quite possibly Eurocentric) willingness to treat nothing as beyond satire?
Another problem is that of interfaith tolerance between say Catholics and Satanists, or even the status of such faiths as satanism, wicca, astarte,Thelema or Scientology within the general question of religious tolerance. What to do about such “cults”, especially (back to satanism) when their foundation is defined by antagonism?
Frank Fredericks responds:
Very Good Question Daniil,
While I am no authority on the issue, There are some things I have stumbled across some concepts and approaches that allow for both maintaining religious strictness while acknowledging irreconciliable differences. Essentially, enough common ground can be made between two faiths which contain “exclusivity” clauses (e.g. Christianity or Islam).
Essentially, we can start by exploring shared values… While many paint religious relations in a dialectical manner, the religious with the most conflict have the most in common, in values and in shared history. This often leads to the creation of shared experiences… I as a Christian may have experienced the same questioning of my faith, or persecution for my faith, or what have you, as a Hindu, Satanist, or Athiest may. This is essentially shared humanity.
The next step is where I like to leave the common dialogue path, and why I don’t even like the term “dialogue.” Often times people feel they have to leave with something in agreement. I don’t. I think more important than “understanding” the opposing faith, is discovering the humanity of someone of the other identity. This is why at World Faith we focus less on talking, and we just want to get young people working together on community service projects (a shared value of faith traditions), as a means to build friendships with the “other.”
I think the problem lies is when people abuse religious language for politic gain. Your examples illustrate this effectively. Often times, among all religious traditions at some point, people will step forward with a tainted message that promotes fear, judgement, and ultimately hate. Yet when we look at religious traditions, if there is judgement, it is only for their god(s) to carry it out, or a spiritual law (e.g. Karma). I have found this true of virtually everyone religious tradition I have looked closely at.
So to break it down further, it is not that we do not promote (or discriminate) Moral Relativism. It is that we all are in pursuit of truth (which may be the lack of absolute truth for Moral Relativists). So let’s say one comes from a religion that forbids the consumption of pork. This moral believe does not require that the person admonish others for their swine-eating transgressions. Rather, they should live their life by their moral assumptions, and then use their interactions to show grace, humility, forgiveness, or whatever religious instruction they have on the topic. This, despite what many say about it, is the call by most faith traditions.
Now, I don’t believe we will ever get together and sing koumbaya, and I am generally annoyed by those who have such idealism (must be the New Yorker in me). However, right now, the extremists of all colors dominate the conversation of faith in society’s media and politics, though they are a tiny minority. We just have to mobilize well enough to reveal to everyone in the middle that they should not fear their neighbors, but that interaction, cross-religion friendships, and common action are safe, possible, and closer to the intent of faith traditions, so that the shared values and experience become mutual respect.
From the discussion board of the World Faith Cause on Facebook:
An Interesting Topic: Accounting 14 November , 2008
Wait, don’t run away! I know it sounds incredibly boring… but it’s… ok well it is boring.
For those of you who are wondering why I haven’t written in a while, it is because I have been focusing on the less glamorous side of non-profit work: accounting and fundraising. Between going back and forth with Citibank about our new account, setting up Paypal Donations and Facebook Causes, I have been applying to endless lists of grants from various foundations.
While having money in the bank for the first time in nearly a year is a good thing, we have only raised about $6,000 we need to go towards the $200,000 budget that we’d like for 2009. Step by step, I hope we can come up with enough to at least mantain infrastructure for the growth we have had, which right now we are not able to do. We are at a point where the lack of employees has began limiting our effectiveness, which is why I am focusing so much on fundraising.
So this is why I am writing less… I figure that banking strategies and grant proposals are less interesting than touring Sudan or being adopted by Syrian Druze (see previous posts). I will be going to India for three weeks in January for the Humari Dunya project, and I am looking forward to that!
Cairo, I’ll be Back 18 August , 2008
So I have left Cairo for the last time on this trip, spending an additional week there after returning from Sudan. Like Sudan, I am considering writing a short analysis of the country from my experiences, but I am still not sure if I should, and if I do, if I should post it. The reason for my uncertainty lies both in the fact that while running a non-profit that is explicitly non-political, if there is a viable way for me to comment on these countries without making political statements. I mean I do have political opinions personally, but I wonder if my own expression could create false assumptions about World Faith, whose leadership are as politically diverse as they are religiously. Also, certain countries I am openly critical of, but it seems potentially problematic if I criticize a nation’s government that we as an organization are working in, especially in a place like Egypt where civil liberties are diminishing if existent. More to come as I decide.
However, World Faith Cairo is born, and interesting is growing much faster there than we ever had in New York the first month. We did we get a group of young people legitimately interesting in leading the chapter, with the awesome assistance of Catherine Manfre, an NYU alumnus, who is World Faith’s Regional Director of Egypt. But even better is we got connected to some of the movers and shakers of Cairo. Including that of Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond.
“Dr. Harrell-Bond is an institution,” her future replacement said, referring to her clout in the international refugee aid world. Michael Hellen-Chu, a friend of mine who works at the UN on the Darfur political solutions team, informed me of her intense behavour and her immense knowledge in the field. Catherine set up some meetings, of which I wasn’t prepped for before. All the sudden I was sitting face to face with Dr. Harrell-Bond. She is about to retire in two weeks, and for some reason she dug our approach, and essentially dragged me to all her meetings and introduced us to several organizations in Cairo.
After meeting with her and everyone else, Catherine and those working with her decided that the best way to kick off World Faith Cairo was through a language exchange between English speaking study-abroad students and Iraqi refugees, who are over 100,000 numbers in Cairo. So our chapter will likely not just be based on Coptic-Muslim division, but also be able to challenge West-Arab relations, and Egyptian-Iraqi relations. I am stoked to see what comes of it.
Now I am in Amman, where I originally intended on relaxing. However, after meeting several people in interfaith, I sort of slipped into World Faith mode and now we are exploring to see if a chapter is a possibility here. Someone wants to introduce me to Prince Hassan, who is very active in the interfaith works here, so we will see what comes of it. Until then, pray that we find some funding so that I can actually continue this fulltime!
A Week in Sudan 9 August , 2008
Well this last week has been a great journey. Someone once told me that the best way to evaluate where you are at any given point is based on these three questions: Are you giving? Are you learning? Are you having fun?
I feel this past week definitely fulfilled the three quotas. A World Faith Chapter is starting with great support in Khartoum, I learned tons about the history and current issues that Sudan is facing, and I met great people who both further inspired me and made the trip enjoyable.
First of all, there is something a bit ironic about meeting anyone from Sudan… They are the most peaceful and amicable people as a culture that I have found in my travels in some 20 countries now. It is damn near impossible to imagine these same people, whether from the north or south, Port Sudan or from Darfur, as capable of what we hear on in the western media, which at time is misleading (I plan on writing another post just on this subject). As arrived on the tarmac this irony became apparent, as the warm smiles greeted me as I arrived, with pieces of Sudan Air wreckage in the background.
I spent my first few days in Omdurman, being hosted by Gihad Abunafeesa, now the Regional Director of Sudan for World Faith. Gihad’s family took great care of me, as I as staying the male side of their gender-separated home, which I shared with her cousin Midu, who is suffering from Sickle-Celled Anemia, and an old Darfurian Sheikh who was deaf, neither of which spoke English. Because of the extreme heat, us three slept outside every night, in the guys’ courtyard, while a light breeze would cool me off.
I met with students from Gihad’s university, Ahfad University, where she is her fourth year as a medical student. I worked from there most days, ironically sticking out as a tall white guy in an all-girls school in Africa. I met many young people interested in the World Faith chapter, and things really solidified when Gihad introduced me to the awesome people of Cafa, a local organization that works on a grassroots level to address issues in Sudan such as AIDS education, peace-building with IDP camps, and training volunteers who are placed in humanitarian projects. After a meeting with Cafa’s Director Yassir Ibrahim, Cafa agreed to host a World Faith Chapter, and has a four-person committee working on how to develop the project, while I am working on promoting the volunteer base.
I feel like I am missing so much but it was one of those experiences, which has some many details, such as my new Sudanese friends, one of which runs an ad agency and I went into a meeting with him, when I should I stayed quiet I instead proposed that this construction company think big, using buildsudan.com (which they bought that day). Or the wedding I went to, where I spent an entire afternoon learning the 50 words necessary to greet a Sudanese person properly (the greetings go on and on, it’s great!). Too much occurred in this period to full articulate, so I guess this is just an ambiguous post…
In other news, I am 3 weeks away from returning to the states. Unless we get funding between now and then, I will have to begin jobhunting… time to start preparing my resumé. L
On My Way Out 30 July , 2008
I delayed the release of this post so it wouldn’t post until I am on the plane to Sudan. I did that as I was getting a lot of concerned people writing, calling, etc, and I needed to pray and think about this one on my own. I appreciate everyone’s concern, but I hope that you all trust that I have planned accordingly and will put safety first in my decision making. Furthermore, the fact that I am going is not a sign of disrespect to those of you who have dissented. Let’s all pray that I have God’s protection throughout.
So now for the story of what it takes to get a Sudanese visa… While I watched a Swedish couple get their visa in a few hours last week, I applied two weeks ago. Starting last Thursday, I have spent anywhere from one to three hours each day at the Sudanese Consulate just to find out if my application has been approved (supposedly by the Sudanese President al-Bashir himself, though I question if that actually happens). Finally yesterday I just stayed around for four hours harassing the consulate guy, Yassir, who has been on a first-name basis with me for nearly a week now. After these four hours he led me to a room in the back of the consulate where a older Sudanese man in a brown tailored suit sat, staring at his computer screen. After a minute of silence (and only a vague acknowledgement of my existence), he fumbled with his printer mumbling, “busy, what?” Turning to me he asked if knew anything about printers.
Seeing that he hadn’t even touched my application, I thought I would take advantage of this moment to pick up some points. A minute later I’m sitting at his desk going through is peripheral settings for his computer and he’s on his cell phone talking to his wife. That’s when Yassir walks back in to find me at the Consulate General’s desk and the CG standing up beside me like nothings out of place. Yassir burst with laughter.
After printing out some sheets I noticed they were blueprints for a house. “My house” he announced with a touch of both hope and pride. Looking over the plans I saw some basic issues caused some dead space in the design (most of you don’t know this, but before I moved to New York I worked summers and weekends/evenings for a few years in construction, saving up for NYU… that was a life-time ago). I respectfully told him, “you know, if you move this wall and this wall, and extended these rooms and move these doors, you could get rid of this dead space and make the whole place more space-efficient.” He bought it. He got so excited that he brought me back over to his computer to show me the location of his house on Google Earth. After buttering him up he began the questioning: “What do you know about Sudan?”
Though I wasn’t sure what the right answer was, I was pretty sure it wasn’t, “well the same government that helps you pay for this house is also sponsoring a genocide.” Irony plays out when for the first time that I could remember, I was trying to be the dumb American. He continued his propagandist remarks about how Sudanese are better than Egyptians, and how Sudan is “the safest country in Africa.” Right. But with childlike naivety I led him to believe that this was great input, and that I had no idea about the country’s history or current dilemmas. “Don’t listen to Western media, Sudanese are the nicest people in the world.” So I responded with, “boy I do wish to get to see that inshallah.”
APPROVED
After that, everything fell into place within a day. More to report from the other side.
The Next Chapter: Cairo 20 July , 2008
After an enjoyable weekend in Amman while basically living out of Book@Cafe, I took a bus to Aqaba and ended up waiting 10 hours for a ferry across to Noueba, which left at 4am, and unloaded at 1pm. That was the worse experience of the trip so far, and if wasn’t for the fact that a friendly Syrian (who also happened to be a Druze from Souada, go figure) helped me out, I may have just totally gone nuts.
Cairo has been an enjoyable experience, as after spending some time here each summer I am finally mentally prepared for the insanity that is Cairo before arriving. Cairo is essentially the same size as New York, only you take away the infrastructure and add heat.
My host last week was the morning DJ for Nile FM, the largest english radio station in the Arab world. After a few days, she invited me into the studio to talk about the hospitality club we are in for such hosting (www.couchsurfing.com), and I also got to talk a bit about the chapter we are working to start in Cairo for World Faith. It was funny to do an interview on the radio that wasn’t focused on World Faith, but rather talking about someone else’s project. The interview will be posted on the World Faith website soon.
So after getting settled here, I met with Mustafa Abdullah, the leader of the World Faith chapter in Winston-Salem, and with Catherine Manfre, who is going to be our new Regional Director for Egypt. After some meetings we came up with our plan of attack, and are hosting an interest meeting for the chapter this Tuesday at Pottery Cafe, across from American University of Cairo (Where Catherine had studied). We already have quite a few interested people, and I think it will be a very interesting meeting… these sort of things get me re-inspired and remind me why I even do this in the first place. More to report as afterwards.
Finally, after going to the Sudanese Embassy, I found out that my application for Sudan has to be personally signed by President Bashir, who was indicted by the ICC the same day I applied… I have no idea if I am going to get this visa or not. Furthermore I have spent most the money I set aside for this trip already, so I am digging a little deeper than I feel comfortable with, but c’est la vie. STILL reaching out to funders and seeing if we can get some real funding behind World Faith, as we still have done all that we have on less than $20,000 in the past two years. I apologize that most of my blogs right now are commentary, but I hope to expand into more exploratory discussions when I am not traveling… Right now I am using the blog to keep people updated that I haven’t been able to single out and update. More to come, as usual… 
