{"id":19550,"date":"2018-01-10T16:48:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T21:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19550"},"modified":"2018-01-10T16:48:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T21:48:19","slug":"the-faith-project-to-spark-discussion-on-religion-and-spirituality-in-pluralistic-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/the-faith-project-to-spark-discussion-on-religion-and-spirituality-in-pluralistic-society\/","title":{"rendered":"The Faith Project to spark discussion on religion and spirituality in \u201cpluralistic\u201d society"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not every day that film makers are given money and almost carte blanche to do what they want, but that is exactly what happened when Shiraz Janjua and his team of filmmakers were tasked by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation to explore the wide-ranging world of tolerance.
\nThe result was The Faith Project, a series of short films focusing on seven young Canadians sharing the rituals that define their spiritual lives, inviting viewers to \u201ccontemplate their inner personal landscapes of faith in a pluralistic society.\u201d
\nWhile these short films have often been viewed on their own, they have been put together into one longer feature which is hoped to spark some stimulating spiritual discussion at the Aurora Public Library next week.
\nMr. Janjua will showcase the film at the Library (APL) next Thursday, January 18.
\n\u201cI am happy we\u2019re actually going to have an audience to engage with the films and I am looking forward to actually hearing people\u2019s reactions and having a conversation with them about what the films actually provoked in them emotionally, how their own stories might be reflected in those films,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat we wanted to do with them is start a conversation about faith in a way that was more personal and relatable, focusing on larger issues [in a way that] was human-centred.\u201d
\nThe Faith Project was sparked by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation which was spearheading an anti-racism initiative focusing on interfaith issues and tolerance. Working with the National Film Board of Canada, they zeroed in on a film exploring those issues with what Mr. Janua describes as a rather \u201copen mandate.\u201d
\nHe and the film\u2019s producers went from there, settling on a starting point of, \u201cWhat are the issues people of faith are really experiencing in our culture?\u201d along with \u201cWhat is the dialogue
\naround faith in the media and the news?\u201d
\n\u201cThere are always issues like reasonable accommodation and different controversies that flare up now and again and I wanted to see how that actually affects people\u2019s lives,\u201d
\nhe says.
\nThese are exactly the kinds of conversations the APL is hoping The Faith Project will inspire when the film unspools in the Magna Room.
\nMr. Janjua is a member of the APL\u2019s Writers Group and it was through the group he connected with RecciaMandelcorn, the APL\u2019s Manager of Community Collaboration.
\n\u201cThe film is just so beautifully shot and I loved the personal focus and one-on-one,\u201d says Ms. Mandelcorn. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t really do a panel because we have so many faith leaders in our community that to invite some would
\nbe to not invite others. We sent out the call to everybody and we invited everyone to come in so we could have a community discussion around faith and the place of faith and churches, synagogues and mosques in our community as social activists.
\n\u201cWe think about newcomers when we think about people who are disenfranchised and need breakfasts or dinners, we think about where there may be bins for clothing, where we think people might be advocating for LGBTQ rights, a lot of that comes right back to faith communities. I thought we could get a discussion going and interconnect. We sent out the call to the York Regional Police\u2019s Cultural and Diversity Unit, all the different churches and church groups, and we asked them all to be a part of the conversation. I think it is going to be fabulous! I am so excited about it.\u201d
\nThis excitement is shared by Mr. Janjua.
\nFinished two years ago, he says The Faith Project might not have changed anything when it comes to tolerance and inclusivity, but having an ongoing \u201ccultural conversation\u201d can ultimately bring about that difference.
\n\u201cThese are the experiences that anchor their identity. Instead of being an abstract concept, they can make it more personal and human. That is where we want the conversation to go,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of times when we hear issues in the news, whether it is the really big issues like terrorism , integration, things like that, people will often look and ask, \u2018what is this community doing about this issue? How are they going to integrate into Canadian society? It is all very abstract. It is not at the level of, \u2018My neighbour, my friend, my coworker, my sister, my brother.\u2019 We don\u2019t see enough of what is that kernel of beauty that people keep returning to in their lives.
\n\u201cThat is the kernel that animates who they are in the world. We want to explore that and we\u2019re hoping with these films they will reach an audience that will be able to take that message forward and, as they encounter so many of these issues in the world, they are not going to talk about abstract terms; they will think more along the lines that these are human beings just like me, they are struggling with the same conflicts I am struggling with, and there is some sort of relationship there that we can build on because we\u2019re all looking for similar answers to the big questions in life.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not every day that film makers are given money and almost carte blanche to do what they want, but that is exactly what happened when Shiraz Janjua and his team of filmmakers were tasked by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation to explore the wide-ranging world of tolerance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018-01-11-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-55k","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 11:47:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}