Opening Remarks

    Social Cohesion has become a major concern for government and civil society alike. We all want to know how a society sticks together. How do we transform our communities, our neighbourhoods, our cities into environments where people of diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds can live and work together safely and creatively? Not an easy question - but one that the UK Bahá’í community is determined to explore.

    The Institute for Social Chesion, established by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the UK, increasingly brings together government, faith communities and civil society to explore issues and solutions. Local Bahá’í initiatives experiment with spiritual and artistic approaches to serious social problems, particularly with disadvantaged young people. Bahá’í communities throughout the UK help their youth and children develop into mature, spiritual and moral people. Bahá’í youth do periods of humanitarian service, often in developing countries, where they learn the meaning of unity in diversity.

   It’s not that the Bahá’í community is perfect. But it is a community that is striving to explore ways of living based on the knowledge of human oneness and a real understanding of the importance of justice.

   It is only when these principles – central to the Bahá’í teachings – become deeply embedded in our hearts and minds and in the structures of society that we will have genuine and healthy social cohesion.

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