Education
The Interfaith Youth Festival
A day in a Halton school where hundreds of students meet, in person, someone from each of the faiths around them — and get to ask.
Since the beginning
The Council’s first act, and still its largest
Within months of forming in 2001, the Council brought students together for the first Interfaith Youth Festival — ten students from every high school in the Halton Region, from both the Catholic and public boards. Michael “Pinball” Clemons of the Toronto Argonauts gave the keynote.
After that first festival’s success, the Council stopped selecting students and began going into the schools themselves, with faith leaders — meeting 400 to 500 students in a single day. It has run that way ever since, in both public and Catholic schools across the region. Those first years pre-date the phones in everyone’s pockets, so almost no photographs of them survive.
From tolerating difference, to accepting it, to embracing it.
How the day works
Booths, and a passport
Each faith community staffs a booth. Students carry the Interfaith Passport, a small booklet with the same questions for every faith, and move in groups from booth to booth asking them — so by the end of the day each student holds an interfaith comparative study of their own. The day closes with an open town-hall session in the school auditorium, where students put their questions to a panel of faith leaders.
What every booth covers
- Principal beliefs
- The history of the tradition
- Religious events and what they mean
- The Golden Rule according to that faith
- What respect means according to that faith
- Coming of age — how young people enter the tradition
- Customs and symbols
Where they can, faith communities send young people to staff their own booths. Youth teaching youth lands differently.
Why it matters
Halton is changing quickly
We are among the fastest-growing and most diverse populations in Ontario. Other municipalities have found that change difficult. What has made Halton different is the level of cooperation between its communities — and that is not self-sustaining. It is built, deliberately, one generation at a time.
Our future is in the hands of our young people. If faith and culture can be understood rather than guessed at, a community moves from tolerance to acceptance. That is built on knowledge, not on fear.
And it works. Before-and-after surveys of students showed their understanding of other faiths improving by over 85%. Halton Regional Police studies found that crime went down in the areas where the festival was held. The first result brought the Council the Gold Medal for Excellence of the Human Rights and Race Relations Centre in Toronto; the second brought the same medal to the Halton Regional Police Service Multi-Faith Support Team, on which the Council is represented.
For schools
What a school needs to bring
Four things. None of them is a budget.
A staff champion
One teacher to lead the design and delivery of the day. In our experience it works best woven into what the school already teaches — art, social sciences, world religions.
Students in the planning
Not just on the day. Students who help design the festival get more from it than students who attend one, and the day itself is better for their involvement.
A willingness to ask
The whole point is questions. Students ask the ones adults have learned not to — and the faith representatives would far rather be asked than guessed about.
A date
That is genuinely all. The Council brings the faith communities, the booths, the materials and the passports.
Interested? Send us a message through the contact form and we will put you in touch with the right person to plan a festival at your school.
From past festivals
The day itself
Everyone is welcome at the table
Bring the festival to your school
We have been doing this since 2001. We would be glad to do it with you.