Awareness Foundation

The Awareness Foundation is a Christian charity that was established in 2003. Their Founding Patron was the Archbishop of Canterbury; they now have a College of Patrons, including The Rt Hon Lord Williams of Oystermouth, Charles Cadogan, 8th Earl Cadogan, Bishop Angaelos, Revd Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, The Most Revd Paul Kwong and The Most Revd Kevin McDonald KC*HS. The Awareness Foundation is based in London, England, with supporters in North America, the Middle East and Hong Kong.

Purpose and composition

The Foundation says that "Our mission is to equip Christians everywhere to form an effective counter force to the intolerance and aggression that now prevail in so many communities. 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.^[2]

The Foundation has a variety of programmes to fulfil its mission:

• The Awareness Course, an education programme, is designed to "enable Christians to live a generous and hospitable faith".
• Awareness Foundation Middle East, which is headed by Huda Nassar, the Director for the Middle East, "builds up understanding between the East and the West" and "strengthens and sustains Christians in the Middle East". A new project is a series of Leadership Training Programmes in the Middle East to enable young Christians to become 'catalysts for peace' in their community.
• Facing Faith, another new programme. This programme is described by the Foundation as "A community-based initiative to promote peace and understanding across barriers of faith & culture"; it works by "bringing together community and faith leaders from different religions and cultures to discuss ideas and share their thoughts on how to promote better understanding and respect among the diverse communities that live alongside each other in cities and towns around Great Britain. Each event helps faith and community leaders to enable local communities to decide upon effective joint activities and programmes for the future." ^[3]
• 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]

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.^[5] 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, ^[6] and both Marshall and Nassar have spoken around the world.^[7][8] 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'. Current 'DVD Modules' of the Awareness Course are 'The Diversity Code', 'Living in a Global Village' and 'Speak Out' was published in 2011. The DVD Modules are described as "very user-friendly and easy to teach." ^[9] The Awareness Course includes a Lent course ^[10] and a day/half-day workshop.^[11] 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.

Notes