WCRP

UK Religious Youth Organisations Seminar

Click here for resume First preparatory meeting March 9th, 1997

Second preparatory meeting

Held at WAMY offices in London
on May 11th, 1997

  1. Date and funding

    After some discussion as whether we had enough time and money to prepare the weekend seminar in October or not, we agreed to move back the date to March 1998 as it was the only other time of year after October 1997 when students would be free of exam obligations. This delay would allow us to have more choice over venue (as many of the venue’s contacted for an October meeting said that they were already booked). It would also allow us time to get a better idea about funding. WCRP to investigate venue for March 1998 based on a Friday afternoon start and a Sunday afternoon finish.

    Organisations are asked to supply WCRP with suitable funding sources that could be approached in the UK.


  2. Structure of seminar

    The rest of the meeting was used to bolt down the main issues for the seminar. We ended by identifying which organisations would work on/lead which issue. These were as follows:

    • Exhibition booths for organisations (WCRP)
    • Cultural event (WCRP + host community)
    • Interfaith Skills Building i.e. communication and interfaith leadership skills (WCRP)
    • Combating Religious Intolerance (NHSF + IARF)
    • Religious Education in Secondary Schools (BK + WAMY)
    • Spirituality i.e. moral leadership and study of religious values (UJS + ABBY)

    The purpose of the exhibitions is to allow each organisation to display what their organisation stands for and what work it does in its sphere of activity.

    The purpose of the cultural event is to socially bring the participants closer and allow an opportunity for the greater public outside of the seminar process to become involved.

    The Inter-faith skills building process would have the idea of training the 50 participants with basic communication and interfaith leadership skills. These 50 would then stimulate and train other youth after the seminar. It is envisaged that groups of say, six or seven, would get together and visit university campuses and would use the student union structures to train youth at local level.

    For the last three items the lead organisation should aim to produce statements of principal that would be signed by all organisation participating in the seminar itself. The statements could then be shared with the media, local and national government bodies, with the student union and could be used to stimulate a post seminar roadshow/peace bus.


  3. Communication and publicity

    The lead organisations for each of the issues identified above will meet outside of this meeting to discuss and give further shape to each area of concern. It was also recommended that each organisation raise awareness and discussion of the particular issue they are lead within there own sphere of work, whether this be via their newsletters or via special slots in their own programmes which they are in the process of organising this year.

    The WCRP will create fours special pages on its web site as a venue to share and discuss:

    The lead organisations will do the initial work over the coming months and they will use the facility of the web site to post up the fruits of their discussions. Other organisations will be able to contribute their ideas and thoughts via the unique guestbook for each of the four pages.


Next meeting:

Host:

Sept/October 1997 - to be finalised

Brahma Kumaries/IARF in Oxford




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