“Meet Your Neighbour” is a program where families affiliated with IDI invite guests to their homes to have dinner together. In these programs, families meet, greet, and create a joyful family atmosphere. Families also maintain good relations with their neighbours, regardless of what their religion, beliefs, culture, or race may be.
The purpose behind these programs is to build bridges between communities and experience intercultural interactions. Through these experiences, exchange of ideas, tolerance, development of new forms of dialogue and new friendships are gained. This brings about kindness, respectfulness, generosity and above all else cultural harmony.
Read more about the project : https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/meet-your-neighbour-ramadan-1.3629933
Food brings people together and with this simple idea in mind, the Intercultural Dialogue Institute is proud to introduce you the Meet Your Neighbours program. This initiative aims to provide space for people of differing religious and cultural traditions to get-to-know one another in the cozy intimacy of each others’ homes. Meet Your Neighbours’ dinners seek to build community through sharing between members of the various faith and cultural traditions throughout Canada.
Abraham, “Friend of Allah” (c.f. Q4:125) and beloved patriarch for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike, is seen as a leading model of moral and ethical conduct. The biblical tradition illustrates the value of “hospitality” in the story of Abraham at Mamre (Gen. 18:1-33) where Abraham selflessly provides food, shelter and comfort to three unknown travelers in his and his wife Sara’s humble tent. Over the centuries, each of the three traditions has developed a unique cultural and theological expression of this value. Now our kitchens and living rooms provide the same space for hosting temporary gatherings of interreligious and intercultural encounter.
Meet Your Neighbour programs are get-togethers filled with both gifts of hospitality and conversation with the goal of relationship building between various ethnic and religious communities in Canada Through these dialogues, communities can be built and engaged in order to develop relationships based on mutual respect and trust. After all, the sharing of a meal is a sacred space where ripples of change can occur and Meet Your Neighbours program aims to spearhead the grassroots effort to rid our communities of intolerance and fear and to foster understanding and respect.
Host Application Form Description
Guest Application Form Description
