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Students Trade Lessons on Faith

Valley high schoolers strive to learn others' religious traditions.

By Marc Benjamin / The Fresno Bee

01/08/07

Valley high school students are banding together to gain a stronger understanding of one another's religious faiths and traditions. The Interfaith Youth Alliance held its initial meeting Sunday at the Islamic Cultural Center in northeast Fresno. The event brought about 20 students together from about a half-dozen local high schools.

The group discussed formation of interfaith alliances at their schools. The alliances would operate under a larger umbrella group and collaborate on community projects.

In addition to the local projects, the group will examine each other's differences to better understand their religious traditions and values.

Said alliance chairwoman Sarah Akhtar, 16, who attends Fresno's Edison High and is Muslim: "Even if we are different, it doesn't have to make a difference."

The group's goal is to have 1,000 members by the end of the year, forming youth alliances at local high schools and networking with other religious youth groups to work on community projects, she said.

Iris Pedowitz, who is Jewish, said people are becoming more closed-minded when it comes to faith, not respecting or understanding different religions.

"I have had people, when they find out I am Jewish, asking what I thought of the Quran," said Pedowitz, 16, a student at Fresno's University High.

Katherine Calderwood, 17, a Clovis East student, recently had her school's interfaith organization sanctioned by school officials, making it the first official interfaith youth forum on a local high school campus.

"There is a lot of religious intolerance," Calderwood, who is Methodist, said of her campus. "It is very Christian, almost imposingly so."

Kamal Abu-Shamsieh, the Islamic Cultural Center's director, said the only ground rules for alliance meetings are that participants not demean another person's religious beliefs or traditions and that they keep politics out of the conversation.

"If you are here to convert someone, you are with the wrong group," he said. "We want to offer an atmosphere where you feel comfortable. It's OK to disagree passionately about beliefs."

The effort to start interfaith clubs in schools, he said, will have to be driven by students.

Attending her first meeting with the group, Bullard High student Rachel Boyd, 16, of Fresno, who attends a nondenominational Christian church, said the meeting was a way to begin learning about others.

She said she is interested in linking her church youth group with some of the other religious groups to take on projects.

"It's a great way to understand other people's beliefs," she said.


The reporter can be reached at mbenjamin@fresnobee.com or(559) 441-6166


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