Fife Interfaith Group

Bringing people of all faiths together through mutual understanding of teachings, traditions, and practices

All physical Meetings and events scheduled by the Fife Interfaith Group have been cancelled until further notice. We hope you are doing all you can to remain safe and well during this difficult time. Click here for government guidelines on how to protect your loved-ones.

Annual Interfaith Lecture - 2019

Put The Kettle ON

Visit the Edinburgh Synagogue

Dementia Scotland

Judaism

Kirkcaldy Food Bank

Visit to Edinburgh Gurdwara

Special Interfatith Event = "Sharing INterfaith Relations"

"Our Story Goes ON"

The Fife Interfaith Group, sponsored by Interfaith Scotland, held their annual Interfaith lecture at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Kirkcaldy, on Wednesday 13 November 2019. Mike Haines, O.B.E. a dn founder of "Glogal Acts of Unity" gave a lecture on his brother David who was captures in Syria by terrorists whilst on a humanitarian mission. He was publicly executed atfer several months of imprisonment and torture. Mike spoke of his fight, not against the terrorists themselves but against all forms of extremism and hatred..


The Audience, consisting of people from many faiths and beliefs were moved by his passionate plea for tolerance. His mantra “If we hate, they win” was repeated throughout his presentation.


Bishop Dale Black, representing the local LDS congregation said of the event “The topic of love, tolerance, and forgiveness was the overwhelming message.”.


Alisha Ahmed, Aged 11, Kirkcaldy High School said she attended this event as part of Interfaith week and found it “emotional and touching”.



Pictured: Mike Haines O.B.E., Bishop Dale Black, Alisha Ahmed, Judy Hamilton (Local Authority Councillor), and Usman Saeed (President of the Edinburgh & Fife Ahmadiyya Community)

Joyce Bloomfield, a local LDS church member, remembered hearing of David's death in the news and was touched by Mike's honest, uplifting, and humble account. “It gave me a desire to serve and make a difference in my community” she said.


Usman Saeed, President of the Edinburgh and Fife Ahmadiyya community later said of the presentation,  “It is so refreshing and inspiring that Mike is going out there to all the communities up and down the country as well as abroad to show how important it is to reject all forms of hate fuelled ideologies whether it be the daesh or the far right.”.


Most of the attendees were able to linger afterwards to socialise and enjoy the refreshments.

Iain Liston, Chairperson of the Fife Interfaith Group, expressed his desire to increase the influence the Fife Interfaith group had in the community and encouraged the attendees to volunteer in whatever capacity they could to support events like these. “I believe we can go back to our congregations, organisations, and social groups, armed with the motivation to make the world a better place, one community at a time”.

A joint event was held in Kirkcaldy by the Central Mosque and Fife Interfaith Group on the afternoon of the 12 October 2019.  It was well attended by about 30 people of 5 different faiths and the object was to interact in an informal way and try and find out more about each other. 

 

The event started with a short presentation by Iain Liston, Chairperson of Fife Interfaith Group, stressing the purpose of Interfaith as a means to achieve greater understanding between different Faiths and Communities in Fife. 


After this, Imam Mansoor Mahmood gave a presentation which explained the purpose of a Mosque not only as a religious centre but also as a community centre.

The plans for the new mosque were very interesting and they were inclusive of the general community, not only to the

Everyone left feeling uplifted and with a greater understanding of what we all have in common.

Muslim community and included a play area for all children. This presentation was followed by a lively question and answer session. 


It is here that the five daily prayers are held and also classes to teach the children about Islam and the Koran.   It is also a centre where everyone can meet for socials and meetings and is open to anyone of any faith who wishes to visit and even pray in his own way there. At the end of the presentation the Imam showed the final plans for new the Mosque which is still under construction and this is hoped to be completed by December next year.There were 6 stalls representing Islam, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Fife Interfaith Group, Kirkcaldy Food Bank, NHS and Dementia Friendly for people to look at and discuss with the stall holders.  Excellent refreshments were available including some delicious homemade Asian treats which were enjoyed by all and there were many lively conversations among those who attended.

Here is Ruth McCabe's (Dementia Scotland) note on the event:

"Thank you so much for inviting me along to your meeting.  I am delighted to have this opportunity to give you information about the dementia Friendly Fife Project and I hope to inspire you to get involved and become a dementia friend.


"Before I go into the details of the Project I’d like to pose you a question. Imagine for a minute that you have been diagnosed with dementia. How would you like to live your life? Would you want to be able to do the same things you have always done or do you think you would need to shut yourself up at home to stay safe and avoid people who may not know how to talk to you?

"If we can create a Dementia Friendly Community across Fife then people living with a diagnosis of dementia in their lives will be able to do what they have always done.

Adult Protection

9 November 2019.

Fife Interfaith Group’s first event of the 2019 Scottish Interfaith Week was a visit to the Gurdwara in Edinburgh.  In fact it happened the day before the start of Interfaith Week but this was because the visit coincided with the 550th Celebration of the birth of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

 

On arrival at the Gurdwara a former church situated in Leith, there was a ceremonial washing of the steps attended by a large crowd of Sikhs obviously enjoying it all.   After the ceremony was over and others had entered with bare feet on the wet steps on a cold day, the rest of us entered and were able to take our shoes off inside.  To our surprise the floor was very warm and it appears that there is now underfloor heating so people do not get cold feet, real luxury!  Unusually it was not just the women who had to cover their heads but square scarves were available for men to cover their hair as well demonstrating their well known belief in equality in treatment of gender.

Professor Joseph Goldblatt, Education Ambassador for the Scottish Council of Jewish Communiuties, or “Joe”, as he likes to be known, delivered an informative and interesting talk to Fife Interfaith Group about Judaism and how they celebrate their Faith in customs and rituals which of course are centuries old. He started by producing one of “Joes’ Boxes”. They are not named after him even though it was his idea to send one to all the councils in Scotland to let them know about Judaism. Joe, is an Acronym, Jewish Objects for Education in Scotland. He opened the boxes and then explained the use of the items enclosed which are used in the Synagogue and

29th January 2019

Colm Wilson Chairman and Frank Bowness Secretary were delighted to meet with Annabelle Ewing MSP at the Fife Refugee Centre in Kirkcaldy on the 25 January 2019.  The meeting followed an invitation from the Fife Interfaith to Mrs Ewing to their 7th Annual Interfaith Lecture in November 2018.  Mrs Ewing was unable to come to the lecture but indicated that she would like to meet with members of the Fife Interfaith Group to find out the scope and range of their activities, This was arranged and an excellent meeting was held at which many aspects of Interfaith were discussed to assist Mrs Ewing in

Fife Refugee Centre

understanding the events that are held in Fife to spread the message of Interfaith.  Colm and Frank were touched that Mrs Ewing took time out from her busy schedule to meet them.

celebrations of the Sabbath and festivals such as Hannukah and Passover and how these all relate to past incidents in the history of Judaism. His enthusiasm for his Faith was catching and his humour lightened the whole talk. He has a special affection for Scotland, the only country in the world never to have expelled the Jews.

That means going to the same shops, banks, building societies, cafés, pubs, libraries, museums, galleries, sports clubs, churches and anywhere else that is “normal” in their lives.

"Over the last 2 years Fife Council has worked with Alzheimer Scotland on a Project to endeavour to support Glenrothes and the surrounding area to become Dementia Friendly. This has involved approaching local businesses and services to take them through a process which involves assessing physical spaces for their signage and way finding and offering dementia friends training.  The range of organisations which received the award include GP practices, Libraries, The Kingdom Shopping Centre, Community Centres, a hairdressers, a hotel, a church, banks, a Building Society and cafes.  The Project was very successful and Fife Council wanted to extend it across the whole of the Kingdom. I have been employed to take this forward.

"The Dementia Friendly Fife Project will work in exactly the same way and will be an extension of the work in Glenrothes. I will be continuing to assess physical spaces to give advice on how to create dementia friendly signage. The other major component of the Project is to make sure everyone has a better understanding of dementia and how it can affect people at all stages of the illness. This is achieved by becoming a dementia friend. This training is open to everyone and can be taken on line through a 15 minute course or at an hour long face to face session.

With one in three of us likely to get dementia it is really important for us all to know where to get information and support and how to look after ourselves and any family, friends or work colleagues who may get diagnosed. Knowledge and understanding about how to live well with dementia is the key to all of us being able to stay at home and continue to be part of the communities we know and love and where we are known and loved.

Dementia Friendly Communities are driven by people living with the illness and they identify priority areas for development and approaches. It is essential that we ask them what matters to them about living with dementia in their communities and I will be setting up events to ensure this happens.  Consultation like this was part of the Glenrothes Project and people in that area told us they struggled to access information through the internet, they wanted to stay at work following their diagnosis, they had challenges with public transport and needed practical information like how to manage a Power of Attorney. From what we heard we created a paper leaflet which contains information about support agencies. We’re working with Stagecoach to ensure all their drivers become dementia friends. We also now ask organisations who get involved to seriously consider the support they would give to members of staff and volunteers who may develop dementia. Some of these issues may be the same in other parts of the Kingdom but it is essential that we ask as there may be local variations. So how can you get involved?

The welcome was warm and friendly and the Langar Hall was full of Sikh families dressed in traditional clothing who were having a great family day out.  Visitors were taken to an adjoining room and there we sat down and soon were given talks about Sikhism and how the Gurdwara is open to all Faiths and anyone who needs help.  Sikhs are renown for their feeding of those in need and after the talks were over we were all treated to a delicious meal including some really tasty sweets.

After this we were free to explore the Gurdwara and made our way upstairs to the Diwan Hall which was a sparsely furnished room with an altar one end on which laid the Sikh’s Holy Book containing the teachings of their founder. 

A lady was there reciting verses from the book and evidently on any day of celebration there will be readings all day long from the scriptures.  Although sparsely decorated the floor was covered by a plush red carpet and concealed lighting reflected subtle colours on the wall and the altar adorned very tastefully. There was a lovely quiet spirit in the room and was a stark contrast to all the noise and celebration taking place down stairs.

A really enjoyable visit to help understand the Sikh Community who have such high ideals to help and understand others.

Centre: Ruth McCabe of Dementia Scotland