"A Movement Involving All of Us"

Susana Medina

Interfaith Youth Core believes that young people are scholars of their own experience. They equip young adults of all religious backgrounds to run and organize their own projects. IFYC has a global interfaith network within six different countries: Jordan, South Africa, Nigeria, Mexico, Canada and the United States.

Eboo Patel, the founder and executive director of IFYC, is an Indian Muslim American. Throughout his childhood, he experienced countless rejections due to his religion. At age 21, Patel became active in interfaith conferences but discovered that he was always the youngest person there.

He reasoned that this had to change because there were countless young heroes with courage and vision to promote the idea of religious pluralism. In other words, individuals from different religions and communities can learn to work together while still remaining true to their religious practices.

On the other side of the faith line are religious totalitarians who defend one interpretation of religion as the only way.

"Interfaith Youth Core is an endeavor that's bringing together the faith heroes of this generation to do the work of our time. That work is to teach the diverse religious communities on earth that our job is to live together in peace and serve others with passion," said Dr. Patel.

Patel and a small group of friends started IFYC in June 1998. In 2002, they all lived together in a house in Albany Park. In order to reach young adults and begin creating service projects and interfaith dialogue, they visited local synagogues, churches, temples and mosques to communicate with youth advisors. They then created programs for teenagers to work and live with individuals outside of their own faith. IFYC wished for these teenagers to understand one another and live in peace instead of hostility.

Mariah Neuroth is one of the individuals that helped found IFYC. When Patel asked her to be on IFYC's staff, Neuroth shrugged. "It was a big risk because at the time there wasn't much money. There wasn't a lot of security." Now she is IFYC's highly successful Project Coordinator.

Initially, Interfaith created events for young adults to actively participate in service projects throughout Chicago communities. Currently they concentrate on global training and consulting. They visit colleges and organizations across the nation to initiate or improve interfaith work on their campus. Neuroth further explains this process.

"If we can be training and inspiring and supporting young people, they're gonna have more creative ideas then we can ever have. We always want to work with young people and make sure that we're keeping our finger to the pulse."

For the past year, Neuroth and documentary filmmaker Idris Goodwin organized an international exchange of 20 young adults in Jordan (Jordan Interfaith Action) and 20 young adults in Chicago. In January, the group from Chicago spent 10 days in Jordan. In June, 19 Jordanians visited Chicago. Both groups continue to dialogue via an interactive website.

A year later, there are 300 hours of raw footage with which Neuroth and Goodman hope to create a full- length documentary by March 2008.

This youth exchange is exactly the type of interaction between young people that IFYC promotes. IFYC's methodology is rooted in service learning experiences, instead of dialogue on political or theological differences. Those types of conversations immediately build a brick wall. If young people meet and do something constructive together then they build healthy dialogue and relationships.

The central question is, "What inspired you to do service today?" Although one person may believe in Jesus and the other in Mohammed, they both agree that everyone should have a home and food to eat. There isn't a lot of room to debate.

IFYC is an organization that thinks on multiple levels. The first is to change the conversation about religion in America and all over the world. "To make it a conversation that is about how people from different backgrounds can work together for a better earth," Patel said. Second, to create concrete events that draw from the leadership potential of young people.

In his 2007 book, Acts of Faith, Patel writes, "Young people have always played a key role in social movements, from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. We live in an era where the populations of the most religiously volatile areas of the world are strikingly young... All of these people are standing on the faith line. Whose message are they hearing?"

During an interview with National Public Radio, Patel argued that social institutions such as gangs or terrorist groups are a sociological phenomenon. Patel strongly focuses on the importance of social groups within society. There are way too many social groups that are hindering the younger generation instead of teaching them positive life values.

IFYC's Youth Council, which Neuroth leads, consists of 80% young women. In addition, the IFYC staff is 90% women.

Patel notes the leadership qualities and vision of young women, stating, "I believe in equality and freedom and opportunity for people from all backgrounds. And I believe in positive relationships between people from all backgrounds. I've paid particular attention to female heroes in different religions including Dorothy Day from Catholic Worker, Jane Adams, my grandmother and Khadijah, Mohammad's first wife. They have been particularly inspiring to me. My life has always been challenged and inspired by women, particularly women of faith."

Obviously, both women and men can make a difference for a better earth. We need to learn to live together, allowing individuals to remain true to their beliefs. Yet still embrace their differences. "One brings one mind to an engagement. One does not simply swallow the bucket that somebody hands you," closes Patel.

Until we meet again, enshahallah (Muslim) or si Dios permite, (Spanish) God willing.

Check out the Interfaith Youth Core's cool new website at www.ifyc.org