Each year on the fifth Sunday of Lent, Islanders of all faiths are encouraged to take part in a solidarity workshop that promotes peace.
This year, the annual Solidarity Sunday workshop, sponsored by the Charlottetown Diocesan Council of Development and Peace-Caritas Canada, takes place March 18 in the MacKenzie Room at St. Pius X church, 2-4 p.m.
It will feature guest speaker Nagham Tarhini, a journalist and community outreach co-ordinator with Adyan, which is a Development and Peace-Caritas Canada partner in Lebanon. Tarhini’s presentation is entitled Together for Peace and Building Bridges of Peace in Lebanon and Elsewhere.
Rebecca Rathbone, Atlantic Region animator for Development and Peace-Caritas Canada will also make a brief presentation on March 18.
There is no charge for the workshop. All are welcome.
In a region of the world rife with religious, ethnic and political tensions, and wounded from past wars, the work of Adyan is ongoing. Through support from Development and Peace, Adyan runs a wide range of programs, including conferences, training for educators, building networks of interfaith leaders and workshops on peace, reconciliation and coexistence.
In a press release, Nayla Tabbara, a director at Adyan, said that for Adyan, the season of Lent presents a perfect moment to experience spiritual solidarity and to encounter the other.
“Our volunteers have a day of fasting together, Christians and Muslims,” she said, adding the same is done during Ramadan. “We promote spiritual solidarity, which is not only being in political or social solidarity with another, but also means, understanding the suffering of others, integrating the other into my religious thoughts and into the way I explain my faith.”
Development and Peace explains that the principle of Solidarity is about transforming the structural causes of poverty, inequality, lack of work, land and housing, and the denial of social and labour rights. Besides Adyan, Development and Peace works in partnership with close to 150 local organizations in over 30 of the poorer countries of the world.
Development and Peace-Caritas Canada partners with several organizations in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in humanitarian and long term programs including health care, food and sustainability, leadership, rural conflict and peacemaking through dialogue.
