Engaging with Scottish Interfaith Week 2024

Scottish Interfaith Week 2024

Scottish Interfaith Week is an annual community-led festival celebrating the nation’s religious and cultural diversity. 

Each year we have around 70 events hosted across Scotland by faith communities, interfaith groups, organisations, local councils, schools and more.

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the festival which will take place on 11-18 November, 2024. 

We believe that encouraging people to discover and learn about the lives of others is an effective way to challenge prejudice and misunderstanding, and that’s why ‘Discovery’ is this year’s theme.

Find out more at scottishinterfaithweek.org

Involving schools in the festival

Engaging in the festival is a key way for schools to develop community cohesion among students, help young people feel safe and connected at school, and challenge stereotypes before prejudice has a chance to take root.

We know many schools won’t have the capacity to host an event but are keen to be involved.

You can engage with the festival by:

• Planning a classroom activity
• Running an assembly about Scottish Interfaith Week
• Creating a book display (using our list of book recommendations for children and young people)

Here are some ways schools have engaged with Scottish Interfaith Week in previous years:

• Mrs Harcombe at Holyrood Secondary School tweeted: “S2 moving around the RE dept looking at all of the Religious artefacts that St Mungo’s museum have loaned us for Interfaith week”.
• St Clare’s Primary in East Renfrewshire tweeted: “P5 enjoyed getting to know our friends in Calderwood Lodge to celebrate Inter Faith Week. #InterFaithWeek”.

• Mrs Chesher at Alva Academy tweeted: “S1 RMPS have had the VIP treatment this week and visited my pop up art gallery as part of their ultimate questions unit 🎨”.
• Mrs Baxter at Lochaber High School tweeted: “A huge thank you to the wonderful Mrs Muir in the @lochaber_high library who has created this awesome display to help the RMPS department mark Scottish Interfaith Week @SIFWEvents”.

Promoting the work you do

At Interfaith Scotland we are keen to share the incredible work teachers do all year round to engage children and young people in interfaith dialogue. 

Please tag us on social media if you’re running an RME activity, especially during or around Scottish Interfaith Week, and we will aim to share it. Find us on Facebook @FollowSIFW and Twitter @SIFWEvents.

We may write an article for our website and newsletter about the activities schools have run to mark Scottish Interfaith Week 2024 and highlight each school that participated.

If your class or school would like to engage with the festival and you have questions, please contact jill@interfaithscotland.org