Quaker receives Blair Fellowship
Symon Hill reports
A Quaker postgraduate student has been chosen as one of thirty people to receive a fellowship from the ‘Faith Acts’ programme run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
Charlotte Dando was selected from over 700 people who applied. The fellows, ten of whom are in the UK, will be given work placements at NGOs, after a month’s training on interfaith issues.
Charlotte, 26, who attends Westminster Meeting, will be placed with Malaria No More. She told the Friend that she sees this as an opportunity to combine two of her major interests – international development and interfaith dialogue.
‘When faith becomes politicised, it can be used in quite a negative way,’ said Charlotte, who wants ‘to show that faith can be quite a positive thing in the world’. She explained that her commitment to interfaith relations is linked to her Quakerism, particularly the Quaker witness to peace and equality. ‘You learn an awful lot from working with people from other faiths,’ she added.
Charlotte said she had not agreed with all Tony Blair’s policies ‘but this is not about politics’. She added, ‘This is not about Tony Blair. It’s about something much bigger than that.’
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