DPCW_1038 : Forming and Putting into Action a Common Spirit for Religious Harmony & Peace

HWPL Religious Youth Peace Camp

 

Raeessa sheikh, Ansari Qadiri Rifai Tariqa(AQRT), South Africa

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⭐️ My name is Raeesa Sheikh, and I am a speech and language pathologist. I am a student on the Sufi path, and I belong to the Ansari Qadiri Rifai Tariqa (AQRT) in Durban, South Africa.

 

Q. What kind of programs were there at the Religious Youth Peace Camp program, and what was the most memorable?

 

The HWPL Religious Youth Peace Camp was fantastic, and I really enjoyed attending it. We looked at videos of various faiths. These included Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and my faith, Islam. The activities involved a board game as well as the history on the Mindanao conflict, and a pop quiz at the end.

 

All the activities were rich in information sharing as well as opening our minds to various perspectives. The board game left an indelible impression on me. It was fun and looked at major and minor religions. Specifically it focused on school life, religious freedom, places of worship, work life. And it was comprehensive in that it provided various scenarios for participants.

 

Q. What was the board game Put Yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes, and what was your impression after participating?

 

As a minor religion, one of the scenarios that I faced playing the board game and this happens in real life, so it was a really good way for us to put ourselves in another person’s shoes, so to speak.

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It looked at school, and if you belonged to a major religion, you went to school. You made friends. You were accepted. You were well understood. If you belonged to a minor religion, you attended school. You were not understood. It was difficult for you to make friends, and you were not accepted.

 

So you were faced with a choice. And the choice that I was given in the board game was that you choose to wear your religious attire and could be denied entry into school, so you are denied education, or you choose [not] to wear your religious attire, and you lose points. And in real life, we know that, often, people are discriminated against based on how they are dressed.

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I very quickly started to see how it was going to be very difficult for me not just to win, but to even come out of that game feeling good about myself, feeling understood, feeling accepted.

Q. How did you feel after participating in the Religious Youth Peace Camp?

 

What I realized is that when we join these spaces of Youth Peace Camps, Interfaith Scripture Dialogue, when we put ourselves in another person’s shoe, when we look at things from various perspectives, we are able to then keep an open mind and understand differences, and not discriminate based on those differences but rather to look at those similarities and then come together so that we can ultimately live as God wants us to live, as brother and sister, as a community, as a nation, as humanity.

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And, I think that the Youth Peace Camp was a really great opportunity for us to learn about religions that we might not have in our local community.

 

In addition, peace-themed recreation, drawing peace, and religious cultural experiences were held at the Religious Youth Peace Camp. Furthermore, there are continued practical activities to solve various difficulties currently occurring in various parts of the world. Examples include the announcement of a statement calling for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2021 and the delivery of a thank-you letter to coronavirus medical workers. Religious peace activities targeting civil society allow them to meet and become one with each other in the arena of dialogue and exchange beyond the walls of religion, ethnicity, and nation.

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