It was 2021, and a new wave of refugees from Afghanistan was due to arrive at Philadelphia International Airport. At the time, Reverend Doctor Valerie Andrews was working at the Christian Missio Seminary in Callowhill. Immediately, she felt compelled to do something.
She went to the Seminary’s president with a rousing call. “We need to get students to embrace these people coming to Philadelphia,” she said.
Andrews wound up creating a training webinar entitled “Gracious Hospitality: Welcoming My New Neighbor.”
The purpose: to help Seminary students understand the history, culture, and current events in Afghanistan in order to empower Christian clergy and seminarians to be good neighbors to this newest wave of immigrants, many of whom were Muslim. More than 30 students completed the webinar, and were then encouraged to welcome refugees at the airport and get involved with organizations providing direct services, like meals.
“What my faith teaches me and what my parents taught me is that there is a level on which we’re all human siblings.” — Nzinga E. Aziz
Andrews says she never would have had the courage to create Gracious Hospitality had it not been for her experience in Visionary Women, an adult learning program from the nonprofit Interfaith Philadelphia.
Becoming Visionary Women
Since 2016, Visionary Women has convened women of all ages and any, all, or no faith one Sunday each month over the course of five months, for three hours at a time at different houses of worship in our region.
Women, while typically underrepresented among clergy leadership, are invariably social connectors and community leaders. Foster understanding and communication among those of different backgrounds and beliefs, and you’ll inevitably spread that respect and empathy among their communities, spreading communication and cooperation that, if you believe the news, is sorely lacking in our neighborhoods and country as a whole.
“Many people have feelings about various groups, yet they’ve never had the opportunity to actually meet anybody from that background. But this is an opportunity to really get to know someone and help dispel myths and make connections beyond the headlines.”— Gaby Lipkin
At each three-hour session, the host congregation teaches attendees about its religion and traditions. Then, women break into smaller, interfaith and inter-generational groups to learn more about each other, the religion at hand, and how to stimulate meaningful conversation across differences. At the end of five months, participants have greater “religious literacy,” have learned how to start and lead productive (if sometimes uncomfortable) conversations across the intersections of gender, race, and faith — and have developed stronger skills in social justice advocacy.
The transformative power of the curriculum, program director Bronwen Mayer Henry explains, is its intentionality. “We are not setting people loose to see what happens,” she says. “It’s not like Hey, come for a tea party, and we’ll happen to have a deep conversation.” Her team leads purposeful anti-discrimination training and coaches how to ask questions of others that are curious — not offensive. Trained facilitators are there to help. And everyone is expected to adhere to two core values: no denigrating of another, and no proselytizing.
Since its inception, Visionary Women has worked with more than 300 women. Some participants attend in their professional roles, hoping to bring what they learn back to their workplace. Others attend because they’re frustrated by the world we’re living in, and want the skills to help bridge divides.
Meet some visionary Philadelphia women
Nzinga E. Aziz, a nurse and practicing Muslim, was part of the first cohort of Visionary Women. She came to the program with her mother and then-teen daughter, the 2017 Youth Poet Laureate, Husnaa H. Hashim. Hashim had relished her time in Interfaith Philadelphia’s award-winning teen program, Walking the Walk, so the women were eager to see what Visionary Women would be like.
The experience was profound for Aziz on multiple levels. Given Visionary Women’s intergenerational nature, she treasured the time getting to better know her daughter and her late mother, Aisha El-Mekki, who passed in 2020, on a deeper level. She also appreciated being with people who were open enough to listen. So often as a Muslim American woman, she says, she has been unfairly judged because of her religious beliefs. “America is called a melting pot, yet this is a place where I am often made to feel unwelcome even though this is truly the only place I call home.”
Aziz says the program reinforced a value that has always been dear: “I am of the perspective that every human voice deserves to be heard. Even if I vehemently and absolutely, to the core of my being, disagree. Because what my faith teaches me and what my parents taught me is that there is a level on which we’re all human siblings.”
“The reason why we don’t get along is because we don’t know each other. We don’t know anything about each other. So I’m afraid of you, you’re afraid of me. But all it takes to change that is a conversation.” — Reverend Doctor Valerie Andrews
Gaby Lipkin, who identifies as Jewish, also heard about the opportunity through her teen daughters; after completing Visionary Women, she continued to meet monthly with women from her cohort, even during the pandemic. Now, she serves as a facilitator.
“Many people have feelings about various groups, yet they’ve never had the opportunity to actually meet anybody from that background,” Lipkin says. “But this is an opportunity to really get to know someone and help dispel myths and make connections beyond the headlines.”
An antidote to polarization
Mayer Henry agrees that Visionary Women is designed to provide an antidote to the increasing polarization of our times. “Real, inner change happens through relationships, through experiences,” she says. “Many people socialize in circles where people have similar worldviews, values, ways of voting, faith, and this is about intentionally building friendships and connections across those differences.”
After an online orientation on January 7, the first of five in-person, monthly Sunday meetings will kick off on January 21 at the Islamic Society of Greater Valley Forge. Subsequent sessions will be held at Beth Am Israel, Unitarian Universalists of Mt. Airy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Greater Community Bible Tabernacle.
Applications are due December 15, with registration fees available on a sliding scale ranging from $75 to $395. (Guidance on what to pay can be found here.) Cohorts have ranged in size, but will not exceed 80 people.
Whatever you can afford, participants agree that Visionary Women is worth it.
“If I want my world to be a better place, it starts with me,” says Andrews. “And to start with me, I have to educate myself, I have to learn, I have to be curious, to find out what’s going on. The reason why we don’t get along is because we don’t know each other. We don’t know anything about each other. So I’m afraid of you, you’re afraid of me. But all it takes to change that is a conversation.”
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