On April 7th, Interfaith Action, Inc was featured in a Boston Globe article about volunteering during Martin Luther King Day. IFA worked with several Boston area interfaith groups for a Day of Interfaith Youth Service.

Interfaith youths unite in volunteerism - Boston Globe

Janet Penn, the director of Interfaith Action, has written an article for the Sharon Advocate about her experience in the middle east.

Janet writes about the struggles and questions she experienced during her recent trip. She asks us to think about how we perceive the conflicts. You can read it here: Spanning the Globe for a Common Ground

AN ACCOUNT OF THE INTERFAITH ACTION AND SHARON PLURALISM NETWORK WOMEN’S GATHERING ON MARCH 2, 2008
By Uma Sundaram

Sharon is a community unique in its embrace of families of many faiths living, bonding, studying, praying, and working side by side.

On a crisp Sunday afternoon, on March 2, 2008, the Community Center, a former resort hotel on the banks of glittering Lake Massapoag, was host to Tanya and Claire, Halima and Betsy, Punam and Donna, Souhair and Barbara and over 40 women of various faiths from the town of Sharon. They came dressed in jeans and churidars, snoods and hijabs, long skirts and kurtis. For all this dazzling diversity, however, there was a curious sense of unity in the room. Each of these women had been drawn together at the invitation of Interfaith Action to both learn about each other and open themselves up to questions that would help others understand them better.

Planned in detail by the efficient team of Asma Ali, Judy Ehrlich, Punam Narang, Claire Ramsbottom, Phyllis Schacht and Tanweer Zaidi and ably facilitated by Judy Kaye and Jean Joyce Brady in the absence of Janet Penn, the multi-faith gathering was divided into four intimate groups, each with its own facilitator, to focus on individual journeys of faith and womanhood in a wholly personal, non-generalized way. The values, teachings, rituals, and practices that were most important to each woman, as opposed to each faith, launched the first part of the interactive dialogue. It was followed by a personal account of each woman’s experiences and challenges as a woman of her own faith.

Differences in appearance and accent were forded by feelings of empathy on shared values of community and belonging and pride in identity. Religiosity and ritualism were described in the same breath as feelings of cultural and spiritual integrity. Note cards handed out at the end of the day on which each woman was asked to write one observation about the day and one message to the other participants were touching in their messages of mutual respect, understanding, and acceptance of diversity.

At the end of a shared dinner where the observations were read out, the sense of a group of women having stepped out of a proscribed boundary was palpable. “I learned..”, “I was amazed…” “I did not know….” were prefixes to many of the sentiments expressed with such simple honesty. As each attendee received the gift of an anonymous note card with a personal message from one of the women in the room, it gave one the same warm pleasure one had as a child upon receiving a take-home gift following a birthday party – a memento and a tangible memory of something valuable that had taken place.

Quotes from other women who attended the gathering when asked “One thing I got from today”: 

“...connecting as individuals helps to make us more open and understanding of other religions and cultures.”

“A wonderful reminder of how lucky I am to live in Sharon, a town whose women are bright, engaging, caring and a real reason to have hope that we can make a better world.”

“a wonderful feeling of connection with women from different faiths and backgrounds.”

“At the end of the day, we are still all women trying to do right by our friends and community.”

“I also learned that I have so much in common with women who seem so different on the surface.”

“An appreciation of the importance of interfaith dialogue....”

“Our similarities far outweigh our differences."</b>