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Panelists Colin Wiese, Bahá’í; Geshe Tenzin Zopa, Buddhism; Melanie Baulch, Quaker; Toni Coleman, moderator; Dr. Ata-ur Rehman, Islam; Rev’d Karen Kime, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; Gaurav Bodar, Hinduism; Rev’d Gavin Krebs, Christianity in the Wagga Wagga City Council Chambers Meeting Room, New South Wales, Australia, August 2019. Photo by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Wagga volunteers.
Approximately seventy community members gathered together at the Wagga Wagga City Council Chambers Meeting Room in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, in August, for an interfaith event, “End-of-Life Care: A Multifaith Conversation,” organized by Potowa Study Group, the FPMT study group in Wagga Wagga. Interfaith activities are one of FPMT’s five pillars of service. Peir Woon, Potowa Study Group coordinator, shares the story.
Geshe Tenzin Zopa and Mr. Dipak Gondaliya, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Wagga representative, Wagga Wagga City Council Chambers Meeting Room, New South Wales, Australia, August 2019. Photo by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Wagga volunteers.
Potowa Study Group organized a multifaith conversation entitled “End-of-life Care: A Multifaith Conversation” in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. The event, held on August 3, 2019, was organized in conjunction with Dying to Know Day, an annual event aimed at improving the death literacy of people in Australia. Dying to Know Day was founded by The GroundSwell Project, an Australian-based non-profit organization.
This multifaith event was the second of its kind organized by Potowa Study Group; the first one was held in 2017. The 2019 event featured an impressive panel of speakers representing the following communities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Bahá’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Quaker. The Buddhist community was represented by one of our dear FPMT teachers, Geshe Tenzin Zopa, who played an instrumental role in initiating the idea of having multifaith conversations locally.
Despite being a small city with a population of about 60,000, multiculturalism and multifaith groups are very prominent in Wagga Wagga. This creates an opportunity for multifaith dialogues, something we recognized especially after Geshe Zopa’s visit to Potowa Study Group back in November 2016.
The annual multifaith event began with participation from four faith groups back in 2017. By 2019 this had grown to seven groups. All the faith groups showed enormous support for having such multifaith discussion on various topics. This is one of the key strengths offered by Wagga Wagga city, which provides a harmonious and peaceful environment for a multi-ethnic and multifaith community.
“End-of-life Care: A Multi-faith Conversation” in the Wagga Wagga City Council Chambers Meeting Room, New South Wales, Australia, August 2019. Photo by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Wagga volunteers.
In 2019, the multifaith conversation was run in an entirely question and answer style format moderated by a palliative care specialist. Approximately seventy people from all walks of life attended the event in person, and another seventy watched the live-streamed event on our multifaith Facebook page, Our Common Word – Harmony Through Unity.
An analysis of our post-event survey shows that attendees enjoyed hearing from the diverse panel of speakers, who they found very interesting, and that all of the speakers spoke extremely well about death, dying, and bereavement. The event received positive feedback for the harmony it created between religious communities, with attendees noting that having such a broad range of religions and cultural groups coming together for this event really reinforced the sense that we can be united and we can live together. Many were surprised by how many things the different religions have in common, and attendees encourage the community to listen to the things that are eternal. Overall the event was a great success. The audience was extremely engaged for the duration of the two-hour event.
Geshe Tenzin Zopa speaking on the panel in the Wagga Wagga City Council Chambers Meeting Room, New South Wales, Australia, August 2019. Photo by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Wagga volunteers.
The success of this event was due to the support we received from the Multicultural Council of Wagga Wagga, a local community group, and Murrumbidgee Primary Health Network, a local government agency, as well as the speakers and faith community groups.
Potowa Study Group is honored to be part of this meaningful annual event and will strive to continue to offer a similar service to the local community in the future. The next multifaith event, planned for mid-2020, will be focused on the theme of environment and sustainability.
Stacey Heer, Murrumbidgee Primary Health Network project manager thanking Dr. Ata-ur Rehman in the Wagga Wagga City Council Chambers Meeting Room, New South Wales, Australia, August 2019. Photo by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Wagga volunteers.
UPDATE—On February 23, 2020, Rotary Peace Day, Peir Woon was awarded the Rotary Club Award for Community Service by the Combined Rotary Clubs of Wagga Wagga’s Peace Community Committee as a representative of the Potowa Study Group in recognition of the multifaith dialogues the group has organized for the Wagga Wagga community since 2017.
For more information about Potowa Study Group, visit their website:
http://potowabuddhistgroup.simplesite.com/
Watch recordings of the “End-of-Life Care: A Multifaith Conversation” event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/262934810779443/videos/
For advice on death and dying, visit:
https://fpmt.org/death/
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