Friday 25 March 2011

HEARTS STOLEN AT INTER FAITH CELEBRATION

Last night I attended a celebration evening for the Faith Encounter Programme (FEP) - of which I have recently become the Chair - at Birmingham Progressive Synagogue. Over the last 3/4 years the FEP has trained over 40 faith guides for places of worship in Birmingham. Last nights' gathering included guides, tutors and steering committee members from Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jewish and Christian traditions. We ate some lovely food , shared memories about the programme and looked forward to the next stage of development - seeking funding to produce training materials that can help export the course further afield. The highlight of the evening was at the end when Beant Singh Sidhu, a Faith Guide from the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha Gurdwara in Handsworth, played the Dilruba, a beautiful stringed instrument whose name means 'heart stealer' - you can get a sense of the beauty of the instrument from the recording I made of Beant's performance on my iphone, which I have posted below...

You can read an earlier posting on PULTA about FEP and the Faith Guides training here