On 25th June 2019, Her Majesty The Queen hosted a special reception at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the work of Faith and Belief Communities in helping to bring communities together. The reception took place in the spectacular Blue Drawing Room overlooking the Palace lawns, where Her Majesty greeted each of the 160 community workers described as the Defenders of Faiths and met with a handful of them. Her Majesty is the head of Church of England and holds title Defender of Faith
Many of the attendees were part of the “Near Neighbours” project, an initiative of the Church Urban Fund, of which the Queen is a patron. The programme seeks to work with all faith groups to create grass-roots projects that support charitable and worthy causes, bringing people of all backgrounds together.
There have been over 1,500 such projects since the inception of the fund in 2011. The Jain community was represented at the reception by Vinay Shah and Kumar Mehta from the Institute of Jainology. They had a good opportunity to meet other faith groups to exchange ideas and share common issues.
The interest of the Queen and the work of the Church of England in actively promoting interfaith dialogue and engagement is promising. The Jain community is well placed to take an active role in participating in these activities and the Institute of Jainology will be working with the OneJAIN organisations to develop this opportunity further.