The news these days isn’t always the most cheerful. But in the past month, at Encounter we’ve been blessed by a series of really positive interactions. I wanted to share some of them with you as so many of you have been key in supporting the work we do either by attending our events, telling friends about us, donating, or otherwise. Here’s just some good things that maybe don’t make your newsfeed.
These police officers enjoyed a meal at the Sikh gurdwara before hearing from Balpreet Singh Boparai, Canada’s leading lawyer for the Sikh community. Photo Credit: Encounter World Religions Center.
Police Religious Literacy Training
In early April, we had the honour of hosting a 3-day Police Religious Literacy program.
The officers were awesome. We had eighteen personnel from seven different police services across Ontario. We spent three days learning about different traditions, visiting their places of worship, sharing a meal, and discussing difficult issues like what to do when someone dies, how to search a home or a person’s body in the most respectful manner, and how to build relationships in communities that will foster trust, cooperation and even lead to recruiting more minority officers so that police personnel resemble the publics they serve.
Some highlights included:
- Learning from Stephen Paquette, an Indigenous elder, a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, and former police officer himself;
- Eating a langar meal at the Sikh gurdwara and hearing from Balpreet Singh Boparai, a friend of Encounter’s and Canada’s leading Sikh lawyer who has presented in front of the Supreme Court and multiple parliaments:
- Visting a spectacular Hindu temple and observing an aarti service.
This new offering from Encounter is the brainchild of our marketing guru, Karen McKay. Police often attend our weeklong Discovery Week and, a few years ago, Karen spoke with some of these officers about creating an event tailored to police. We designed this program in consultation with officers from four different police services and ran a trial event 18 months ago. The trial was positively received but we also learned a lot about how to improve it. This reworked 2.0 version reflected the valuable feedback we received and we were thrilled with the glowing responses this time and heartened to have 100% of attendees rate it as “great.”
Special thanks to Peel Police for providing hosting space and to Subhaan Siddiqui who was relentless in leaping hurdles to make this event happen.
Photo credit: Canva
Victim Services
This was a very police-centric month as, completely separate from the 3-day program described above, we did our first-ever presentation to the Victim Services unit of a police service in the Greater Toronto Area.
These folks are not officers but rather are civilians called upon to support victims who have lost a loved one or suffered personal harm. These 60 dedicated folks spent 3.5 hours one evening learning about different religions including how they grieve, things to consider in cases of intimate partner violence, and other really sensitive and important matters. These folks do such critical and caring work and were enthusiastic (even at 9pm!) in spending a long evening discussing ideas on how to reach out with as much sensitivity and skill as possible. It was really uplifting to spend the evening with them.
High Schools
We spent seven days in April with high school classes from multiple schools in the Toronto area. In most cases, we were taking two classes on a joint field trip, visiting three houses of worship. We learned a lot on these trips including:
- At one mosque visit, Canada’s most prominent imam addressed us, including reciting the call to prayer and singing some Sufi prayers. We also witnessed prayer time.
- At a synagogue we visited, they have a Torah rescued from the Nazis. Damaged Torahs are usually buried but this one, salvaged from a Nazi warehouse, is kept behind glass in the foyer as a reminder of how many Jews lost their lives and how the community carries on despite the hatred that tried to eradicate them.
- Several classes observed an aarti ritual at the Hindu temple.
In addition, we visited a school that takes in youth who are facing more significant mental health challenges where we brought sacred objects and talked about the religions these objects came from. The students were very interested and the teachers, who were so obviously deeply committed to these students, spoke with me for a long time afterwards about what they’re attempting to do there. The environment in that school felt somewhat sacred and it was an honour to be asked to share with these students.
Students made their first visit to a mosque, learning from Hamza while appreciating the beautiful blue Turkish-inspired interior. Photo Credit: World Encounter World Religions.
Looking Forward
It was a very good April, and we are also excited about May. We have several more schools we will be visiting and taking to temples and mosques. We have a full weeklong online program with Road Scholar where after morning lectures on five religions, attendees in the afternoon will meet friends of ours online such as Dr. Shari Golberg, Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo, and Sarah Mushtaq. We’re doing a program with the Region of Peel on Demystifying Sikhism with our friend Harman Singh, which will be our fifth religion that we’ve spotlighted with Peel. And, a special treat, is we will be hosting students from three American universities who are coming to Toronto for a 4.5 day mini-Discovery Week!
From left to right: Dr. Shari Golberg, Photo credit: worldreligions.ca, Center: Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo, Photo credit: By Spencer hm – Photo from a photoshoot Previously published: cheridinovo.ca , CC BY-SA 3.0, and Sarah Mustaq, Photo Credit: Sarah Mushtaq.
We wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for following us, for coming to our events, and sharing our work with others. It is a privilege to do this work and we hope you find the efforts by so many to learn more about their neighbours to be as inspiring as we do.
