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Faith & Dialogue Resources | Trainers team

Faith & Dialogue Training Course

In April 2007 the SALTO Cultural Diversity Resource Centre and the UK National Agency organised a training course in Belfast, Northern Ireland for youth workers to look at the issues of faith, spirituality and community cohesion work.

Background

This training course derived from the needs-based research carried out by the SALTO Cultural Diversity Resource Centre during 2006. Taking into account the efforts for the preparation for the year of intercultural dialogue, understanding the promotion of priorities of the "All Different All Equal"- campaign and formulating the request from participants on previous courses, trainers and participants on the recent Inclusion forum; faith and dialogue seemed to be a highly topical and requested subject. There were requests from youth leaders and National Agencies to approach the subject of 'religion' in a more open way through a training course, and to discuss not just the challenges which are brought by religious difference, but the opportunities presented by working with that very difference. In working through the idea, we suggested that 'faith' would cover more aspects than 'religion' on its own, encouraging a more inclusive objective, based around the priority of Cultural Diversity.

It was expected that this training course would also promote the possibilities of the new YiA programme as a tool for implementing interfaith projects, as well as some steps towards realising those projects. The integration of the local reality was also a priority, taking examples from the Northern Irish experience to enrich the programme and provide further stimulus.

It was suggested that the cooperation with SALTO Diversity should be in the form of channelling the content and outcomes of the training course in a publication that would continue the good example of the "intercultural communication"- resource produced in 2006. It has been proven that products created out of implemented training courses by SALTO have a wider reaching impact and a 'truer' voice as they come directly from the participants, the trainers and the experts themselves. For this to happen, resources were supplied by SALTO to provide rapporteuring during the event, and continued support after the event to ensure a quality product spreading the knowledge and content of the course to a much wider audience.

Aims and Objectives

The main objective was to increase awareness and understanding of key concepts (such as faith, religion, dialogue and identity) and how they influence dialogue and interaction in a diverse community.

This course was designed to help participants to...

  • BE MORE conscious about the influence faith has on identity
  • IDENTIFY and overcome challenges / difficulties / barriers to dialogue
  • ENHANCE mediation skills and techniques
  • BETTER UNDERSTAND the impact of faith on communication + dialogue
  • SHARE experience of case studies + best practices
  • INCREASE knowledge on theories and concepts
  • TAKE INNITIATIVE and learn new approaches in handling activities with diverse groups

Participants profile:

  • were directly involved in youth activities with young people
  • had experience of faith projects,
  • shared appraoches and practise with other workers in this field
  • were willing to pass on information, skills, knowledge
  • were motivated to be an active participant and able to attend the course for its full duration
  • were able to/get support to implement future projects and activities
  • were able to communicate and work in English
  • were resident in a member state of the European Union, Programme countries (a few places were available for Neighbouring Country Regions [Euromed, Eastern Europe and Caucasus and South East Europe])

*Priority was given to participants, who have grass-roots experience of inter-faith dialogue projects and/or those, who have a need to include it more in their future international youth work.

Author: Susie Green / Contact: / Last modified: 2010-02-04

Link directly to this page: http://www.salto-youth.net/faithdialogue/