Over 30 women attended a “Sharing the Light” evening at the Kitchen Table Cafe in East Ham on Wednesday 10th March. The event was organised by Shirley Biro (from St. Barts Church) and Nicola Vidamour (the local Methodist Minister) following their participation in a “Building Bridges” training course run by Conflict and Change.
‘Building Bridges’ (Faiths in Action) is a four day training for women in Newham to gain tools and skills in running interfaith events with the aim of building bridges across faiths in their communities. The hope is that women, after having completed the training, will run an event (or events) which will include people from different faiths which will enable participants to meet and take part in shared conversation or activity. ‘Sharing the light’ is a great example of such event.
Three speakers – Saira Yakub (Muslim) from the Redbridge Faith Forum (who also completed the ‘Building Bridges’ training ) , Shristee Damree (Hindu) President of PYP Yoga Charity North East London and Helen Mossop (Christian), a retired Palliative Care doctor, spoke about the significance of light in their own faith tradition. Conversation followed over a meal around candle-lit tables.
The organizers hope that as a result of this event small groups of women from different faiths will begin to meet monthly in one another’s homes to continue “Sharing the Light” together. They also hope that an inter-faith community event “How many women does it take to change a light-bulb?” will be organised towards the end of the year.
