When I first set foot into the offices of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) in Greek town on my first day as intern in May, 2010, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I remembered reading a book titled ‘Acts of Faith,’ by Eboo Patel and read about their mission to ‘build mutual respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others,’ but I soon found out whatever I thought I knew about interfaith cooperation and dialogue was only part of the bigger picture.
My placement was with the One Chicago, One Nation initiative, a pilot year program designed to train people from all over the city of Chicago, from 18-88 years of age, to host Community Conversations about interfaith dialogue and cooperation around issues in their community. Through the trainings, nearly 100 Chicagoans from all over the city and suburbs came together to learn about how their story can be used to change the conversation around an issue (such as anti-violence, for example) and move together in service.
Throughout my time at IFYC, I got to interact with Community Ambassadors who were trained through the program and came from all sectors, college and university campuses and organizations as well as program officers from the Chicago Community Trust and high level corporate officials who attended the reception and induction for the trained ambassadors. I sat in on the trainings, created demographics to analyze the numbers from the pilot year and also engaged with the Community Ambassadors who were from all spiritual and religious backgrounds from Secular Humanist to Christian, Islam and others. (more…)