Awareness Foundation

The Awareness Foundation was established in 2003 with mission statement "To empower Christians everywhere to be a counter force of love and peace to the intolerance and aggression that now prevail in so many of our communities".^[2] Their Founding Patron was the Archbishop of Canterbury; they now have a College of Patrons, including Charles Cadogan, 8th Earl Cadogan, Bishop Angaelos, Revd Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, and Revd Paul Kwong. They are based in London, England, with supporters in North America, the Middle East and Hong Kong.

Purpose and composition

The Foundation says that "We want to enable Christians to live a generous and hospitable faith; emphasize the role their faith has in healing broken societies; facilitate positive interactions with neighbours and colleagues from other faiths; build up understanding between the East and the West; strengthen and sustain Christians in the Middle East.^[3]

The Foundation has two programmes:

• The Awareness Course, the education programme, and
• The Awareness Forum, which consists of special events such as dinners, conferences, roundtable exchanges and lectures, focusing on religious and cultural issues of the day. For example, in 2009, a delegation of business and religious leaders travelled to Syria to meet with their counterparts from the region.^[4][5]

The Awareness Foundation is ecumenical, with board members from the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Episcopal Church in the US and the Middle East, the Greek Orthodox Church, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist Churches, plus several charismatic evangelical churches.

Personnel

Bishop Michael Marshall is President of the Awareness Foundation, and the Revd Nadim Nassar is Director.^[6] They are co-founders of the Awareness Foundation, and co-authors of the Awareness Course. Nassar has been a guest blogger on the UK Daily Telegraph website, ^[7] and both Marshall and Nassar have spoken around the world.^[8][9] Charles Longbottom OBE was the Founding Chair of Trustees.

History

The Foundation was launched in September 2003 by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a service at Holy Trinity Sloane Square church, where Marshall was Rector from 1997 to 2007.

Awareness Course

The Foundation describes the Awareness Course as 'helping Christians to make sense of their faith in the 21st century'. The first DVD Module of the Awareness Course is called 'Citizens of Two Kingdoms'. A second DVD Module, 'The Diversity Code', was published in 2011. The DVD Modules are described as "very user-friendly and easy to teach." ^[10] The Foundation has now produced a Lent course ^[11] and a day/half-day workshop.^[12] All are free in the United Kingdom.

The course is said to be suitable for all, and while aimed primarily at Christians, the Foundation reports that people of other faiths or none regularly attend the sessions^{[citation needed]}.

Notes