by Annika Goddard, CCJ Campus Leadership Programme 2023-24

The long-term aim of our interfaith project is to create a ‘women’s space’ where women of any faith can find a community modelled after what we love about existing women’s spaces in our faith backgrounds. In order to organize an initial event which was representative of different faiths from the beginning, I reached out to Islamic Society and Jewish Society. Amina from Islamic Society and Dalia from Jewish Society therefore co-hosted the ‘Women’s Spaces’ event, and we all brought our unique faith perspectives to the table.

We met at the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, who had generously offered to host the space for free. The Woolf Institute {founded 1998} is an Abrahamic interfaith organization already working, with an academic emphasis, in Cambridge. We hosted the even just before the start of term {January 17th} in the hope that people would be more free, but realized that a lot of teaching had started on Tuesday 16th, which limited availability. As such, we rethought our existing plan the night before and came up with a contingency plan for if there were ten or fewer guests.

Thankfully, a total of fourteen people attended the event. Though this was a little less than we’d hoped when we set out to plan the event, it was a lovely way to be able to adapt to a whole-group approach to the event, rather than a more casual social mixer. We began with social time for people to arrive, eat snacks and drinks and talk to one another. As expected, people tended to sit next to members of their own faith group, so our first activity after introducing ourselves was “speed faithing”, in which random pairs were asked questions like “What do you love about women’s spaces in your faith tradition?” and “Is there anything you find challenging about those spaces?”

Having mingled more with one another, we broke into small discussion groups of around five to envision what we would want an interfaith ‘women’s space’ to look like in Cambridge. This is where the small-group environment was very helpful, as people were on the whole very enthusiastic to share and discuss. Ideas for future events included: a Scriptural Reasoning session; baking Challah together or eating together in a kosher kitchen; tours of faith spaces; and working together to combat lack of faith provisions in college environments. The event ran for two hours, with no formal end; people simply left when they wanted to.

In terms of the long-term aims of the project, we have already met more casually for a morning coffee and study session together. We will, in conversation with the Woolf Institute, be planning another formal meeting {probably Scriptural Reasoning} for later in the term. The focus of the first event was Abrahamic faiths, but we are now hoping to get greater outreach with other faiths. For example, a member of the Krishna Consciousness Society came to our coffee meet-up.

Thank you to CCJ and to Beth for coming along, helping out and helping us to fund the event!