The Joseph Interfaith Foundation does not put any information about some of its work with individual students and its student groups on its website.
Working at university campuses
The three major areas of the Foundation’s work are with university students, religious leaders and educating the public. Projects are usually set up in association with student societies. In agreement with them we will invite academics to speak.
Sometimes we have specialised projects which are for certain student societies only. This is always arranged in multilateral agreement with the students’ representatives.
Our approach to initiating projects has always been proactive rather than reactive. At campus level, this requires genuine, honest and varied contacts with many student organisations and sensitivity to their perception of immediacy of different issues.
We believe that “interfaith” should not necessarily only apply to the sharing of the lowest common denominator. Working with university students and academics necessitates approaching the subject from a much more nuanced, intellectual and academic level. Such discussions inevitably involve issues which are of central as well as tangential relevance to Muslim-Jewish relations.
Sometimes it is necessary to work with individuals or small groups on a much more specialised method of engagement rather than the conventional one. These discussions require confidential dialogue. It is vital that all participants feel confident that they are speaking in an absolutely impartial forum.
Since we are an officially registered joint Muslim-Jewish organisation, inevitably we come across some students who are not necessarily keen to participate in a joint project. As part of the Foundation’s ethical principles, we are committed to freedom of expression and individual’s right to privacy. Therefore, we do not release any personal details of any student without their written permission.
Our open-to-all university projects are clearly recorded on our website for those who are interested and for evaluation purposes. In 2009 we run seminars on “Confronting the Far Right”. Major seminar series in 2010 was “Freedom of Speech: Its Rights, Remits and Responsibilities” held successfully at several universities and is ongoing.
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