Faith organizations can contribute to well-being and resilience

Faith organizations in the region have contributed substantially to our collective well-being and resilience during times of crisis. During the first weeks of the ongoing pandemic for example, faith communities banded together and provided a spiritual, financial and community-level support that could not have possibly come from anywhere else as early and with as much compassion at the grass-roots level.

These communities at synagogues, churches, mosques & temples organized food pantries, early support for households struck by COVID-19 and/ or by loss of income, provided valuable medical guidance on COVID-19, used kits to make masks early and in volume for health care providers and worked to drive a genuine outreach across boundaries of faith, ethnicity, language and culture. Historically, faith-based community organizations across the country have also served federal and state agencies (FEMA, CDC, DHHS to name a few) by providing community resources that generally help them prepare for and manage disasters and hazards at a local level.

To us, this spectacular display of brotherhood between faiths - for a common purpose driven by similar values of compassion and altruism is evidence our faith organizations can do much more — during times of crisis and during calmer times of normalcy. We can help by walking the bridges our faith organizations have already built and do not need a crisis to warrant their use.

Growing up in the region, three example experiences of faith organizations engaging with the community at large come to mind — reinforcing our optimism in the outcomes this partnership could bring.

Our first such experience, when we were 9, was at an Interfaith Peace Camp of the Association of Religious Communities (ARC) in Danbury. The camp included a very diverse group of children ages 8 to 11 and taught us what peace means in different world religions through multiple class room activities. We were thrilled at being given “Peacekeeper” awards (and free brightly colored T-shirts) by ARC. What struck us and stayed with us for a long time was that it was so easy to convince and show us then the commonality across the diversity of our beliefs. If this exercise were repeated at scale, we’re convinced — the world would be much more at peace.

A different experience during our middle school years was one when we received early career guidance and support from volunteer professionals in our community. These parents zealously started a Math & Science Club and a Coding Club inviting youth across the region from different faiths and backgrounds to join in the clubs at our Mosque — The Hedaya Center, to prepare for and compete in Math and Science competitions at the local and national levels. The program had more youth from outside of our community than within over a period of 2 years creating a dynamic that built bridges and lasting relationships between students and between their parents. The positive energy in and around these career building exercises in Math, Science and Coding energized several of us enough to overcome together an otherwise intimidating prospect of learning Java, Python, Algorithms & Data structures.

While this experience helped us prepare for and refine career choices, it also convinced us that Faith organizations have the integrity, commitment and wherewithal to deliver substantial benefits to the community at large in domains unrelated to expressions of faith.

A third experience was nothing like either of the above. In the words of the community at B’nai Israel and The Hedaya Center: “We create peace by doing it...” at the ‘Kid’s Kingdom’ playground in the Brookfield Municipal Park — a joint-community picnic between families at the Hedaya Center and B’nai Israel where “Playing, reading, making a craft and eating together” was all we did! Charity begins at home, we were taught. World peace begins in your backyard when ordinary people reveal extraordinary opportunities, we learned.

Faith organizations are necessary for the things they do for their congregations. From our experiences, when they come together, they can accomplish a lot more for the communities outside and make the world a better place.

Adam and Ibrahim Bhavnagarwala are seniors at Danbury High School in Danbury, Connecticut. They co-founded Exasense Technologies — a startup that commercializes their invention of detecting toxic/ flammable emissions using Machine Learning.