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To coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Swindon Interfaith Group are inviting friends to fast for one day in order to,

Everyone that fasts will be invited to an evening dinner hosted by the Muslim Community, where they will also be encouraged to donate the money that would have been spent on food and drink for that day. In addition, the Muslim community will donate £10 for every person that takes part in the fast.

The day of the fast will be Wednesday 22nd May 

Instructions for fasting.

Muslims will be fasting from dawn until sunset (3.15am till 9.05pm), without any food or water, but as most people will not have fasted before, or infrequently, the instructions for the charity fast are as follows,

Go about your usual routine, but if you can, try and take time to pray or meditate at least once during the day.

Arrive at the Al Habib Islamic Centre, Chapel St by 8.30pm where there will be a short discussion on homelessness and the work of local homeless charities. We will then “break” the fast with dinner and no doubt much sharing of the fasting experience!

If you would like to participate in the fast, please contact any member of the Swindon Interfaith Group, or confirm via the website contact form (www.swindoninterfaith.org) so that we can collate numbers for the dinner and also add numbers for the “Just Giving” page.

Following the barbaric Easter Day terrorist attacks on churches and other properties in Sri Lanka, many people in the UK have been coming together to express their condolences and stand in solidarity.

As we said after the terrorist attacks in Pittsburgh USA and Christchurch New Zealand – such attacks on places of worship are a reminder of the need to condemn extremist violence in the strongest terms and to stand together and to continue to work together with ever greater urgency against ignorance, prejudice and hatred.  Hatred targeting any community because of its faith and belief is a scourge that cannot be tolerated. There must be freedom for all communities to worship and practise their faith freely and without fear.

Thank-you to everyone who attended our discussion on Faith and Charity last week, we hope that you all enjoyed the event.

We were honoured to host Pradeep Bhardwaj from Swindon Hindu Temple who gave an interesting and informative talk on the concept of Faith and Charity from a Hindu perspective, we then had a series of questions and answers that Pradeep was kind enough to participate in.

We had originally been due to have a talk from Islamic Relief, unfortunately they were unavailable due to a recent disaster situation in Africa. We didn’t have a chance to share this on the evening, but here is a short video about the work of Islamic Relief:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qdPPViDTYU

We also wanted to share this short video on Charity from a non-religious perspective, which the committee found interesting: https://youtu.be/f3qCejfLqk8

Our next event is Monday 15th April, 7pm at St. Augustine’s Church on Summers Street, Even Swindon.

Many of our members will be aware of the incredibly sad news of terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier today.

This afternoon, the National Interfaith Network issued a statement, which can be at https://www.interfaith.org.uk/news/terrorist-attack-on-mosques-in-chistchurch-nz-statement. 

Our thoughts and prayers of course are with the victims and their families at this incredibly difficult time. The attacks have been condemned members of all religious groups and of course we as an Interfaith Group stand in solidarity and support of all of our friends and neighbours in the Muslim community at this time.

To mark our respect and remembrance for this terrible event, and other terrorist attacks around the world in recent times, we will be holding a period of silence and reflection at our A.G.M on 27th March.

You are invited to join us on Wednesday 27th March 2019 for our event “Faith & Charity”, which will be proceeded by our Annual General Meeting.

7pm at Pilgrim Centre, Regents Circus

The Annual General Meeting is where we reflect on our activities over the past year and discuss plans for the year ahead.    We will also announce any changes in our officers and committee members.

After the formal AGM  business is over we will hear about  the work and running of the charity “Islamic Relief”  which is an important member of the UK’s “Disasters Emergency Committee”.

We expect  this to lead to a question and answer session and an opportunity to debate how all the faiths have a long and distinguished history of promoting charitable work here and around the world.

We hope you will come and support this important meeting in our annual calendar.

Our meetings are open to everyone and we are always seeking new participants and also new faith representatives to serve on our committee.   

We are excited to be participating in ‘A Question of Faith 2’ at St Augustine’s Church in the run up to Easter!