Message from ICNY Executive Director
Dear Friends,
At this time of year in particular, we are deeply grateful to our partners — grassroots religious leaders, secular professionals and donors who have worked with us to open minds, strengthen families, deepen mutual understanding, and advance inclusivity and respect.
Looking back on 2014 the Religious Worlds of New York Summer Institute opened minds of 25 teachers from 13 states, selected from a pool of over 120 applicants. In partnership with Union Theological Seminary and supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the three-week program introduced these teachers to American religious diversity and gave them tools for teaching more effectively about contemporary religious life. In addition, we hosted and ran School-based Religious Diversity Programs and a Debate in the Neighborhood Program which trained religiously diverse high school students in the art of debate.
ICNY strengthened families by bringing together government agencies, social service providers, and religious groups to broaden outreach to under-resourced communities, to make certain services are culturally competent, and to enhance services through volunteerism. The Reentry Family and Faith Circles of Support program is a partnership among ICNY, the Harlem Community Justice Center, Network Support Services, and several Harlem churches and mosques. With funding from JC Flowers Foundation and Episcopal Charities, the program offers interfaith hospitality and a chance to give back to the community through faith-based and civic events to parolees returning to the neighborhood and their families.
Building upon the 29th Annual Rabbi Marshall Meyer Retreat for Religious Leaders on Child Welfare and Foster Care, ICNY’s Catholic-Muslim Common Action Initiative entered a new phase. We are developing training programs for child welfare and foster care service providers and Muslim community leaders with the aim of offering more culturally sensitive children’s services for Muslim families and recruiting more Muslims to serve as foster or adoptive parents.
Deepening mutual understanding of our city’s diverse religions and customs is key to building trust. Through its Catholic-Muslim Common Action Initiative and Social Work and Religious Diversity Training, ICNY has demonstrated that learning about other religions’ social teachings, and launching shared social service projects, serve to bond diverse communities.
Finally, ICNY advanced inclusivity and respect for racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse groups by joining more than 50 organizations and individuals signing on to an amicus brief supporting a federal lower court’s decision in Floyd, et al. v. City of New York et al. that found the New York City Police Department liable for a pattern and practice of racial profiling in implementing its stop-and-frisk policies. In addition, ICNY joined New York Disaster Interfaith Services and other religious and civil rights groups in protesting the National September 11th Memorial and Museum’s airing of the film “The Rise of Al-Qaeda”, which we believed did not adequately distinguish between Al-Qaeda and Islam.
All of this work was possible because of your belief and support of ICNY. As we approach year end, please read our Annual Report and consider making a tax-deductible donation to The Interfaith Center of New York.
Your donations make an enormous difference to our work. Checks can be mailed to:
The Interfaith Center of New York
475 Riverside Drive, Suite 540
New York, NY 10115
or you can contribute online through Network for Good.
Thank you for your generosity and ongoing support and for your trust in the vision of our city as a place safe for religious diversity.
Best Wishes,
Rev. Chloe Breyer
Executive Director
The Interfaith Center of New York
Access the E-bulletin for December here.
