Over the course of the last year, I have been part of the Boston Interfaith Leadership Initiative (BILI), a program for interreligious leadership development. It was an opportunity to develop a set of skills and a network to mobilize, which was even more necessary than one could imagine at the start of our time together.

With several other students committed to interfaith work, we kicked off the year with an interfaith conference in Chicago, Illinois. At the conference, we initiated our journey together as a cohort while also connecting with other interfaith leaders throughout the country. Through that experience, I was able to develop a national network of interfaith leaders while creating lasting friendships.

While Boston has exposed me to students from a number of backgrounds, Chicago was a different experience entirely. To an east coast girl, the midwest vibe was a different pace for sure. We happened to be there the weekend of Lollapalooza, mixing a spiritual space with an air of endless possibilities. The different backgrounds, personalities, and ways of engaging with faith blended together to truly create an uplifting and invigorating community. I bonded with the other BILI members in our cohort but also with other Interfaith leaders from across the country. Throughout the conference we challenged each other, grew together, and made memories. From deep dish pizza to late night Desi food, laughter and tears, the weekend was unforgettable. Beyond that though, we were setting the stage for coalition building before we even knew what it was.

The conference brought to light some unexpected points of the interfaith community. There were moments of vulnerability and expression. There were opportunities for conversation, debate, and education. There was also a weird sense of obsession with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for which the divide fell along religious lines. Some participants got a thrill out of the subject which was off-putting to say the least. Through our breakout groups, we were able to find how interfaith work was structurally instituted in various schools with settings and demographics. This was the first taste in this program of interfaith work for social action.

Once back to the east coast following the conference, we had time to digest what we had learned while beginning to develop our interfaith toolkit. Our monthly meetings ranged in focus topics from cultivating our voices to understanding pluralism. Through reflective exercises, guest speakers, group discussions, and case studies, we were able to learn more about interfaith building within multiple contexts. We learned about coalition building and interreligious literacy as a means for progressive community action. Interfaith work can be challenging. In order to recognize this, we studied intersectionality and facilitating difficult conversations.

One of the guests we had that resonated most with me was Zienab Abdelgany, a member of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) who led us through an exercise to create effective coalitions. As such, she taught us the power of building coalitions within her community in California, where she was first introduced to the concept. The exercise that accompanied it helped us strengthen our storytelling skills and ability to connect with one another. It was powerful in the sense we were able to harness a capability necessary for forward looking changes. 

All these efforts culminated in the planning of a weekend long retreat, during which we implemented the toolkit we developed. It was rewarding and fruitful. I hosted a panel for Ihsanne Leckey, a current candidate for congress, about the complexities of the Muslim identity. Through this panel, we explored her role as a Muslim woman making advances for underserved and marginalized communities in Boston. Throughout the weekend, we also worked with the other fellows and guests to better understand ourselves, share experiences, and set intentions for future works. As a finishing note for our time as BILI fellows, there was also the spring air with an air of renewal. Before everything broke loose with Covid-19, we were prepared to apply the skills we acquired as a group and implement them in our own local communities.

Throughout the year, I had been leading my university’s refugee advocacy and action group to bring attention to the multitude of crises currently occurring. With an interfaith lens, the resources at our disposal were used to further our message however the skills developed in BILI were used to further the effectiveness of our action. With the addition of Covid-19 and mass protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and other Black people to senseless violence, the sense of urgency for social action was renewed. Ways that I have brought these skills back to my community and will continue to do so is by pushing for social action with the skills I developed at BILI. This means coalition building, intersectional advocacy, and having difficult conversations. 

In the wake of the BLM protests, I led a program with other students and faculty in my university’s center for spirituality, dialogue, and service to host a campus-wide healing circle. It involved setting intentions, a healing prayer, message of consciousness, mindfulness exercise, and a breakout session to process topics in smaller groups. Staff, students, and various community members joined to deliver a further impactful dialogue; it was interesting to see familiar faces come together in such a space. This was a necessary opportunity for the community to come together and express themselves within the context of spiritual healing. Through healing practices, spiritual texts, and honest conversation, our community was able to pause and reset, renewing ourselves for the next steps we must take in this social action journey.  

I also reached out to the national network we developed in Chicago. It was an opportunity for us to share resources and ideas to push forward in our action. Within my refugee advocacy group, I used the interfaith social action lens to promote a global health fundraiser for Black lives. These all testify to the power of the interfaith toolkit and the communities fostered through my BILI experience.