Faith is a powerful asset. Lauren Marino’s workshop entitled “Channelling Change through Faith and Community” explored answers to questions about working with interfaith groups, the role of faith in development work and the connotations of faith and social justice.

“I went to bed crying several nights in a row because I felt like people were disrespecting me and disrespecting each other,” said Marino, describing her experience working in an interfaith fair trade delegation to South Africa in college. That experience sparked her to develop beneficial ways of working with those of different and non-religious backgrounds.

“The factor that is dividing them right now can also be a glue in bringing them together,” said delegate Ala Salameh, whose project focuses on working with Jewish and Muslim communities in the Detroit area.

Participants described faith based social justice efforts with a variety of adjectives at the beginning of the session, ranging from conservative, to organized, inspirational, evangelizing, divisive and caring.

Much of the discussion revolved around maintaining the perspective of a learner when engaging with other religious traditions as well as your own. Marino also stressed the context specific nature of working with other faith leaders and members as integral.

“Sometimes you develop a relationship first and then later can talk about your differences, other times you want to sit down and talk about the issues first and that will build a report,” Marino said, who also emphasized the importance of knowing yourself and your story, developing a comprehensive religious literacy and as focusing on good historical examples of how religion and social justice have combined beneficially in the past.

With a range of faiths represented in the session – Judiasm, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and more – some participants recognized their religion as a major motivator for their work in human development.

“Social justice seems to be the realm where any faith can walk into and have a conversation about,” said GES co-director Sana Rahim.

What role has faith played in your life? What motivates you to engage in development work?