Festival of Faiths

"We are excited to announce that the John Humphrey Centre's Youth Peacebuilders team is organizing the first Edmonton Festival of Faiths, which will be an interfaith event providing Edmontonians with an opportunity to learn about the different faiths, traditions and belief systems present in our city, from the people who actually practice them. There will also be interfaith panel discussions, performances, and presentations. With the aim of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of Edmonton’s faith diversity, Festival of Faiths will be a safe, inclusive and welcoming space for Edmontonians of all backgrounds to reflect on faith diversity, community and compassion.

Here are the details:

Date:  Saturday, September 19th, 2015
Time:  10:30 am - 4 pm
Location: Edmonton City Hall, City Room (main atrium)

The faiths currently confirmed that will be represented at the event (and this list is still growing) include:

- Anglicanism
- Atheism/Agnosticism
- Ba'hai
- Buddhism
- Eckankar
- Falun Dafa (Falun Gong)
- Islam
- Judaism
- Sikhism
- Swedenborgian
- Unitarian Universalism
- Wicca
- Zoroastrianism

After the recent local vandalism attacks at the Cold Lake Mosque, and the Siri Guru Singh Sabha Sikh Gurdwara and Beth Israel Synagogue in Edmonton, one of our panels for the day will be focused on combating hate from an interfaith perspective. Our other panel will focus on human rights and the persecution of minority faiths and traditions around the world.

We will also feature several interfaith performances, and the Mosquers, Edmonton's Muslim Film Festival (themosquers.com) will be screening some of their films from their recent festival. The festival will kick-off Edmonton’s inaugural YEG Peace Fest, a week of events running from September 21st to October 2nd which will promote peace and human rights throughout the city.

Please help us promote the event by tweeting with the hashtag #yegfaithfest and sharing the Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/events/1451208051849183/

The Festival of Faiths is being planned by the John Humphrey Centre's Youth Peacebuilders project, an interfaith program where youth and young adults aged 18-30 visited various different faith centres around Edmonton to learn about different traditions. This project has been made possible by the Edmonton Community Foundation and is supported by the Edmonton Interfaith Centre for Education and Action."