Learning to Live Well Together. Tom Wilson

The main aim of the St Philip’s Centre is of learning to live well together. We are an accredited provider of learning outside the classroom, and as such our focus is not so much on academic or theoretical study but rather on the learning that comes through meeting different people and exchanging views. Some of our work is rigorously academic and some of the training courses we provide are accredited, but by no means is all of our work conducted in this fashion. The book introduces the St Philip’s Centre approach to multifaith engagement and education, using the Centre’s strategic aims as an overall framework. Since our focus is primarily on religion as people live it out, there are relatively few academic references in the text, but a great deal of discussion of work with different groups of people.

The issues that the St Philip’s Centre tackles are ones which many people are interested in. Community cohesion is often in the headlines, sometimes for positive reasons, such as the accounts of groups of Muslims travelling to Cumbria to help in efforts to clean up after floods. But almost invariably the reasons are more negative. As we were putting the finishing touches to our manuscript, the Casey Review was released (Casey 2016). The recommendations which grabbed headlines concerned the social isolation of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim communities in particular, epitomised by the comment that in one school pupils thought the population of the UK was between 50 and 90 per cent Asian, as such had been their own personal life experience to date. The report made 12 recommendations, including for an increase in investment in teaching English as a second or other language, working to overcome cultural barriers to employment, and introducing stronger safeguards to protect children in unregistered and out-of-hours school settings. In many ways, the report built on the much earlier work by Ted Cantle (Cantle 2001). The question we found ourselves asking is, in 15 years’ time, 2031, will another report into integration be produced, and how will it differ from the 2001 and 2016 offerings?

Integration is a loaded word, with implications about imbalance of power, forcing change on one community and apportioning blame. At the St Philip’s Centre, we use different language. We talk about learning to live well together, about developing trust and fostering co-operation. Much of our work is in the areas that both Cantle’s and Casey’s reports covered. However, since our approach is more grassroots based, bottom-up as opposed to top-down, it is well received by the communities we work with.

Chapter 1 introduces the context of Leicester and discusses the so-called ‘Leicester model’ of social integration. Chapter 2 engages with the overarching theme of living well together. It introduces the St Philip’s Centre as an example of an agency working with people of all faiths and no faith. There then follow two case studies, one on a series of conferences that the Centre has conducted in partnership with the Church of England’s National Education Office, on the theme of ‘Living Well Together’. The second gives an example of our training offer for public sector organisations.

Chapter 3 discusses encounter, explaining how to facilitate good encounters between people of different faiths or no faith. The two case studies in this chapter are of work with the armed forces and with medical students. Chapter 4 takes understanding of different religious perspectives as the main theme. The focus is on brief overviews of the diversity within the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh religions. Chapter 5 focuses on the development of trust. The chapter begins by explaining why the Centre uses trust, and not tolerance, respect or honour, as a key criterion for evaluating our work. The discussion moves on to how trust can be developed and includes a more in-depth look at one key area of the Centre’s work, namely the Prevent strategy. Chapter 6 gives examples of co-operation. There are brief discussions of two areas where the Centre has done a small amount of work, namely in responding to child sexual exploitation and hate crime. The bulk of the chapter examines the Near Neighbours programme, and includes several case studies of projects supported by the work. Chapter 7 examines twenty-first-century interfaith work, using the example of the Catalyst programme.

Chapter 8 asks, ‘Where next?’ The chapter proposes a three-stage model for learning to live well together in the future. First, we must acknowledge what is, making a realistic assessment of the current situation that we face. Second, we imagine what could be, taking in a wide variety of views and perspectives. Third, we decide together how we can get there.

The book is a joint project between ourselves, the director (Tom) and deputy director (Riaz) of the St Philip’s Centre. We have indicated at the start of each chapter whether one or both of us have been involved in writing it. We are grateful for the support, encouragement and advice of many colleagues and friends without whose help this book could not have been written.

THE LEICESTER CONTEXT

TOM WILSON AND RIAZ RAVAT

Our community has been too isolated. Before I went on the Catalyst programme, I did not have any friends who were not Jewish. Having taken part, we have resolved to set up an interfaith group in our school, to make sure more of our friends get to meet with people of other faiths. We have been too inward looking. We need to change.

Those were not his exact words, but they were the sentiments expressed. The young man, who is himself a committed Jew, was speaking at the annual Lambeth Palace interfaith reception in May 2016. He is a graduate of the Catalyst Young Leaders Programme, of which more in Chapter 7. The St Philip’s Centre runs Catalyst on behalf of the Near Neighbours programme (the Bradford-based Faithful Neighbourhood Centre delivers in other areas of the country). He had attended the West London Catalyst course in 2015 and was reflecting on his

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