Values in Harmony - University of St Andrews

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF VALUES IN HARMONYThe second planned outcome of this Project was “…to use this as a tool to raise awarenessin women and young people of how their Religion or Belief can lead to increased communitycohesion, integration, and harmony.” This was achieved in two ways. Firstly, at the focusgroups to discuss each Religion and Belief’s particular submission, it was noted that 68% ofattendees stated they knew the Golden Rule was common to all Religions. But when theywere asked if they were aware that it was also common to non-Religious people, i.e. secularHumanism, this figure fell to 47%.Secondly, at the time of final printing two out of five planned focus groups had been held withHNC classes in Forth Valley College to try to meet this outcome. They were a mixture of menand women under the age of thirty years. No one had heard of the “Golden Rule” and mostpeople felt that Religion did not promote harmony. This demonstrated a clear need for raisingawareness and challenging stereotypes in young people who are not actively following anyparticular Religion or Belief.However, the remit of this Project was not to take awareness raising any further than thefocus groups. In order to take it further, approaches should be made at both the national andlocal levels. Nationally, the Scottish Government’s Religion and Belief Strategy FrameworkWorking Party should ensure it is fully engaging with all representatives of the Religion andBelief communities. They should also actively promote the previously described “side-by-side”dialogue community engagement, as we all share common values. Similarly, as a Nationalorganisation the Scottish Inter Faith Council should be more inclusive in its promotion of InterFaith dialogue. The EHRC’s single strand lead in Religion and Belief could also play a key rolein supporting work in these two areas.Locally, notwithstanding the need to respect differences, Religion and Belief communitiesshould be raising awareness of their shared commonality. As the photo in the Humanistsection suggests, we are all together on this one planet and need to look after it. Perhaps anyplanned community action could be considered as part of the previously mentioned “side-byside”dialogue, and thus involve people from different communities, both faith and non-faith.Again, Inter Faith activities should be more inclusive of all Faith groups.One obvious way to use this document as a tool to “promote good community relations”would be to develop it further into a practical training resource. In this way key groups couldbe targetted in order to raise awareness of this commonality they all share together. Oneexample could be an invitation to speak at Religious and Moral Education (RME) classesheld in secondary schools. Evidence above from the two focus groups in Forth Valley Collegesuggests there is such a need in young people.“Be the change you want to see in the world” said Ghandi, one of the greatest believers in theuniversality of the Golden Rule. We would do well to remember these words first for ourselves,before undertaking any community-based awareness raising.82