Tremendous response for Interfaith Tour to stop hate through learning
Hundreds of people in the Triad in U.S.A took on Saturday a different approach to putting a stop to hate, WFMYNews2 reported.
The interfaith tour in Winston-Salem brought young Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others together to listen and learn from each other.
The hope is they will see kids from other traditions and realize that they are not all that different from themselves.
This was the 9th annual Interfaith Tour in Winston-Salem and organizers are already planning next year’s event. “I think we can learn to become more accepting of other people once we get to know their faith in detail,” said Yuzy Ye, a freshman at Wake Forest University.
“It’s a really good opportunity for people not to just learn about different religions but to get a different perspective,” said Husain Lawrence, a 14-year-old member of the community mosque of Winston-Salem. “I feel like that’s the problem that we have today. We criticize these religions but we don’t know anything about them we are just being ignorant. So we can actually learn about them and realize they’re not that different from ours.”
“I feel like we’ve had the ability throughout the tour to not only mingle with people and teach them but we get to show them the better side of Islam,” said Miyarah Robertson, a 12-year-old member of the community mosque of Winston-Salem.
Over 200 adults, children, and college students toured three different churches in Winston-Salem to learn about each other’s different faith traditions.
Participants visited the community mosque of Winston-Salem, St. Phillip’s Moravian Church, and Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church.
“This whole tour for me has been a really cool, new experience because I get to mingle with a lot of different people,” said Robertson. “I’m learning about other people’s faiths. So it’s just a really nice experience and it’s fun, too. I’m learning something new, you know!”
Tour Organizer Jerry McLeese says in a world of hate and terrorism and violence, an event like this aims to shape our youth to create a more peaceful future.
“I think one of the things that we have to contend with this ignorance of other traditions. Frankly, sometimes ignorance of our own traditions,” said McLeese. “What we have found is that when we get people together talking about their own faiths and they ask questions about others and then they start to ask questions about their own. The result is we have what I think is a more peaceable community.”
“I feel like the hate really comes from us not understanding,” said Lawrence. “Take Islam for example, people only see what they want to on TV like they’ve probably never even been to a mosque before. They only see the Middle East and stuff like that. They say it portrays Islam but it’s not. It’s not. Our religion is actually really beautiful.”
“We have certain misconceptions of some things especially because we don’t really know about it,” said Ye. “Once we get to communicate with people who are of that faith, we get to know another side of it that isn’t influenced by social media and I think that helps with understanding the faith.”
The interfaith tour in Winston-Salem brought young Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others together to listen and learn from each other.
The hope is they will see kids from other traditions and realize that they are not all that different from themselves.
This was the 9th annual Interfaith Tour in Winston-Salem and organizers are already planning next year’s event. “I think we can learn to become more accepting of other people once we get to know their faith in detail,” said Yuzy Ye, a freshman at Wake Forest University.
“It’s a really good opportunity for people not to just learn about different religions but to get a different perspective,” said Husain Lawrence, a 14-year-old member of the community mosque of Winston-Salem. “I feel like that’s the problem that we have today. We criticize these religions but we don’t know anything about them we are just being ignorant. So we can actually learn about them and realize they’re not that different from ours.”
“I feel like we’ve had the ability throughout the tour to not only mingle with people and teach them but we get to show them the better side of Islam,” said Miyarah Robertson, a 12-year-old member of the community mosque of Winston-Salem.
Over 200 adults, children, and college students toured three different churches in Winston-Salem to learn about each other’s different faith traditions.
Participants visited the community mosque of Winston-Salem, St. Phillip’s Moravian Church, and Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church.
“This whole tour for me has been a really cool, new experience because I get to mingle with a lot of different people,” said Robertson. “I’m learning about other people’s faiths. So it’s just a really nice experience and it’s fun, too. I’m learning something new, you know!”
Tour Organizer Jerry McLeese says in a world of hate and terrorism and violence, an event like this aims to shape our youth to create a more peaceful future.
“I think one of the things that we have to contend with this ignorance of other traditions. Frankly, sometimes ignorance of our own traditions,” said McLeese. “What we have found is that when we get people together talking about their own faiths and they ask questions about others and then they start to ask questions about their own. The result is we have what I think is a more peaceable community.”
“I feel like the hate really comes from us not understanding,” said Lawrence. “Take Islam for example, people only see what they want to on TV like they’ve probably never even been to a mosque before. They only see the Middle East and stuff like that. They say it portrays Islam but it’s not. It’s not. Our religion is actually really beautiful.”
“We have certain misconceptions of some things especially because we don’t really know about it,” said Ye. “Once we get to communicate with people who are of that faith, we get to know another side of it that isn’t influenced by social media and I think that helps with understanding the faith.”
