Email a Believer

Engaging with the lived reality of religion and worldviews- a new approach

How do we engage with the lived reality of belonging to a religion or organised worldview? How can we learn about personal worldview perspectives on a range of issues? Many of you will have used our Email a believer facility over the past few years. This has been a valuable resource for many teachers. Pupils have asked hundreds of questions to believers and gained real insights into the lived reality of religion and worldviews. In order to develop this resource about the lived reality of religions and worldviews further, we are going to widen the diversity of beliefs being shared. The current Email a believer facility will be replaced by a brand-new approach through REONLINE, which will empower teachers to engage with those who hold particular worldviews in their local area whilst following best safeguarding practice.

We are developing a set of Frequently Asked Questions with answers previously provided by the Email a believer team. The aim over time is to add a diversity of answers from within an organised worldview to show that there may be divergence of opinion or belief. This resource will be created during 2020-21. We hope this will be used widely to provide personal worldview perspectives on a range of issues.

We are developing a set of new ‘signposting’ resources which will include suggestions about how to link with your local SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on RE) and ideas about connecting with religion and worldviews through social media, online platforms and to safely bring the voice of different worldviews into the classroom.

Lastly, Culham St Gabriel’s has recently awarded a grant to The Muslim Council of Britain Charitable Foundation to develop a guide for teachers of RE on arranging school visits to mosques, as well as producing a project delivery template to enable other minority religion and worldviews to replicate the approach.  This project will begin in Autumn 2020. More details of the project can be found here https://www.cstg.org.uk/grant-giving/grants/grants-awarded/

We know that some will be disappointed that Email a believer is no longer going to continue but we hope you will be inspired by our new approach in the coming year.

Kathryn Wright

CEO, Culham St Gabriel’s Trust