By Rida Rizwa, YES 2013-2014, Pakistan, hosted by PAX in De Pere, WI​

Christmas is a holiday that is enthusiastically celebrated around the world; however, that statement is not applicable to the city where I live, Faisalabad. That is due in large part to the fact that Christians are a minority in the city, and Christians and Muslims segregate themselves in different areas of the city. 

Since returning from my YES year, this lack of interaction between people, just because they follow different religions, has really bothered me. After seeing people of different faiths interact peacefully in the U.S., I began looking for ways that I could start building that same harmony, in my own community. At the end of 2014, I made my first attempt by conducting a project called “Share A Bear” with my other alumni friends in Faisalabad. 

We started the project with a social media campaign, asking people from various religious backgrounds to donate toys for those in need. The campaign was successful, helping us collect a total of 50 toys. After this came the hard part. Our goal was to distribute the toys to a local church to help children in need celebrate Christmas; however, when we contacted local churches around the city, no one trusted us, nor would they allow us to enter. Finally, after insisting and reaffirming that our intentions were only to create friendly relations, a church invited us to join them. The experience was more than fantastic, because it helped us build good relations with the pastor, his wife, and everyone in attendance. The children were very excited to see the gifts wrapped just for them to open the next morning. 

The long-term impact and success of this project can be seen in the fact that this Christmas, the pastor called to invite us to the sermon and ask if we would be willing to attend. A welcome from him was all the impetus we needed to ignite into action, and without a blink, I was jotting another Christmas project proposal. This year we were able to collect a total of 100 toys, doubling the distribution and furthering the project’s success. 

Conducting this project every year has made me realize that this world is too small for us to spend time pinpointing differences; we need to live together in peace and harmony. The satisfaction that I feel each year after concluding the project has no words. In fact, I think it is that feeling of satisfaction that led me to apply for the YES Interfaith Harmony Workshop in Morocco. Through this workshop, I am looking forward to learning more ways that I can build bridges between different religious groups that reside in my community. This is a huge task, but I will continue to try to do whatever I can to help bring us closer to peace.