By Maham Nadeem ’19

This past semester I served as the CFV interfaith intern. In this capacity, I served as the chair of the Interfaith Council. I was able to work with a vibrant, energetic, and engaged group of students all coming together to discuss faith. As the chair, it was my responsibility to choose discussion topics and lead the conversation.

Throughout this whole experience, I was able to engage and connect with people from different backgrounds. As a Muslim woman in today’s America, being a part of this group has been really meaningful to me. Since there has been a spotlight of adversity on my faith tradition in recent months, it has been really empowering to share with others the good my religious community has to offer. Its been comforting to talk to other people of faith and make connections on how many similarities our respective faiths share. For example, in nearly every meeting this semester, council members were able to connect verses and written text to the topic we were currently discussing and often times what they were quoting was very similar in meaning.

As a leader in a discussion, one of the most challenging things to do is making sure you are engaging everyone in the room. I tried my best to make everyone in the group feel involved. Often times this pushed my out of my own comfort space. I tried to set an example of courage and bravery by speaking out and honestly sharing about own experiences, doubts, and beliefs. I think for the most part this helped set a tone of openness and respect which encouraged others to share about their own personal beliefs.

In the future, I want to further hone all the leadership skills I have learned through this internship. I want to continue to connect with people through interfaith discussions. Personally, I believe the solution to many disagreements is proper discussions. In the future, I hope to facilitate conversations about faith and the intersections between religions.