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Dec
9
Baha’is help organise first ever inter-faith eisteddfod in Wales
Filed Under Arts and entertainment, Baha'i community, inter-faith | Leave a Comment
On 5th December the first ever Inter Faith Eisteddfod took place in Cardiff as the culmination of events held in Wales for the Inter Faith Week in Wales.
An eisteddfod – Welsh for ’sitting together’ – is a festival of literature, music and performance and this particular eisteddfod gave people from the different faith communities in South Wales opportunities to perform in the spirit of creating connections and friendships.
Inter-faith Wales used funding from the Welsh Assembly Government and the Big Lottery to employ South Wales Baha’i Fleur Missaghian to manage this exciting and innovative project.
‘It was a three month project,’ said Mrs Missaghian, ‘and we had to work hard to persuade people to take part. But we did a lot of leg-work and had a good many one-to-one conversations with people from the various faiths. In the end it all came together.’
The eisteddfod aimed to include stories from different faiths, stories of inspirational people of faith, spiritual stories, the story of a particular art form practiced by a faith community and so on.
Said Fleur Missaghian, ‘The aim was to contribute positively towards building a strong, diverse and united community in Wales, celebrating and finding common ground amongst the different ways of life in Wales.’
‘For two months prior to the eisteddfod,’ explained Christine Abbas, one of two Baha’i representatives on Inter-faith Wales,’creative arts workshops were held to engage the faith and wider communities in story telling and to prepare for the eisteddfod itself. Some of the faith groups hadn’t previously been involved in inter faith dialogue.’
The preparations culminated in a presentation of stories, music, dance and drama by faith groups. The show was attended by the Deputy Mayor of Cardiff, by Dr Harriet Crabtree, Director of the Inter Faith Network of the UK and by other guests. Baha’is, Hindus and Muslims were amongst the faith communities supporting the event.
‘We felt we were not so much organising an event as developing a model to work with faith communities,’ said project organiser Fleur Missaghian, who had been assisted in her work by Baha’i youth Kalim Bartlett.
‘These words of Baha’u'llah underpinned this process,’ said Christine Abbas,’Our hope is that the world’s religious leaders and the rulers thereof will unitedly arise for the reformation of this age and the rehabilitation of its fortunes.’
A film of the eisteddfod will be available to download from the Inter-faith Wales website sometime in January.
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