Often in our endeavors, whether personal or professional, transformative change eludes us because we address only the surface symptoms of a problem. Despite our efforts, the underlying issue remains unresolved. This can lead to frustration, burnout, or acceptance of the status quo. The 5 Whys technique will help.

In this free 4-hour event, high school students will have the chance to work with a team of their peers from faith communities across the DMV area, to learn the basics of problem-solving systemic issues in their communities. Each team will work with our trained facilitators, to go from having a small idea to developing a fully-fledged solution to an assigned issue. At its close, students will have explored ways to connect their beliefs with action, collaborated with peers from all backgrounds, and will walk away with key presentation and problem-solving skills, feeling empowered to take effective action in their communities! This event is 100% free for all attendees, and lunch will be provided.

Meet Eunice Lin Nichols, Co-CEO of CoGenerate, where as part of an intergenerational leadership team, she champions and supports the coming together of generations to co-create a better world. But it’s more than just a job for Eunice, who lives into the power and potential of intergenerational engagement in all aspects of her life, including her spiritual practice and even when delighting in her personal passion for music. As innoFaith has partnered with Eunice and CoGenerate, we’ve witnessed how her deep curiosity and authenticity are gifts to her personal and professional communities.

Meet Ibrahim Anli, Executive Director of the Rumi Forum, writer, teacher, convener, and interfaith champion and innovator. Ibrahim brings a deep curiosity, robust spirituality, strong intellect, and joyful openness to shaping interfaith engagement that engages all and cultivates a better world. Originally from Turkey, Ibrahim now lives in Haymarket, VA, and works in Washington, DC.

Meet Rev. Abi Foerster, Pastor of Community of Faith United Methodist Church in Herndon, VA. Shaped by her faith and own experiences as a child, and then as minister and parent, Pastor Abi brings an expansive ethic of inclusion to her work. Deeply committed to young people, she is currently launching a new initiative to engage young people across faith lines to develop their own capacities as inclusive leaders.

Meet Jonathan Hayden, Vice President of Operations at Leadership Foundations, a faith-based network that drives spiritual and social change in cities throughout the world through the unique lens of envisioning cities as playgrounds. With Jonathan’s leadership at their Colangelo Carpenter Innovation Center, Leadership Foundations supports churches to, among other things, move from charity-based models to systemic change. They are also working to equip young people as social and spiritual leaders for their cities. After 17 years in Washington, DC, Jonathan and his family are now enjoying a slower pace of life in Chapel Hill, NC.

Faith leaders and institutions play an important role in this effort. Deeply rooted in local communities, they serve as hubs for connection, dialogue, and moral reflection, often enabling people from diverse socio-economic and political backgrounds to find common connection. Their ability to convene and inspire is grounded in centuries of traditions of gathering, ritual, and shared values. During a time when our democracy faces unprecedented challenges, these leaders have unique potential to guide us toward new visions of civic engagement. By leveraging their moral authority and trusted positions within communities, they can help shape a more inclusive and participatory democratic future - one rooted in the everyday acts of connection and care that sustain a healthy society.

Meet Scott Rechler and Sarah Beller, partners in life and, as enshrined in their Jewish marriage contract, in cultivating a more just world. Bringing about social change is never a solo endeavor, so we are thrilled to introduce Scott and Sarah in our first joint feature. Both Scott and Sarah live out their Jewish values with deep passion and commitment in their personal and professional lives.

Faith & Philanthropy, an exploratory joint grantmaking initiative that aims to shape “a philanthropic landscape that embraces the transformative potential of spirituality and faith to address the pressing challenges of our time,” recently released a Spiritual Imagination report featuring twelve grantees rooted in various spiritual traditions that are leveraging faith and spirituality for social impact.

Meet Francesca Reznik, Program Manager at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and committed climate activist based in Boston. Influenced by both her Jewish values and her own non-theistic spiritual practice, Francesca recently completed her Master of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School and is focused on creating climate transition solutions that benefit everyone. Fun facts: Francesca is half Mexican and fluent in Spanish and co-founded an ecotheology fellowship while at Harvard Divinity. She is also an innoFaith Contributing Editor.

innoFaith recently facilitated and supported a collaboration that modeled a different approach, one in which the community recognizes, honors, and supports children as important civic contributors and teaches giving not as sacrifice or something nice to do, but as a core aspect of children's participation in their community. In this approach, instilling the values of community, compassion, and gift become less about the fortunate and less fortunate and more about understanding the varied experiences of people and the varied ways that children can and already do help. This approach also requires adults to entrust kids with real decisions about engagement in their community rather than telling them what to do.

Meet Sadaf Taimur, mother, PhD student, Dalai Lama Fellow, and passionate advocate, educator, and innovator. Sadaf previously developed a project to address gender discrimination in education in her native Pakistan. Now, she is engaged in action-oriented research on transformative sustainability education, which recently won her a Green Talents Award from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Meet Yasmine Arrington, social entrepreneur and so much more. Yasmine started her organization ScholarCHIPS as a junior in high school, turning her own experience into a way to support many other young people. She has won tons of awards and been featured in TeenVogue, Essence, Forbes, the Washington Post, and more. Through university and divinity school, she continued to grow her organization and now runs it full-time. And if that weren’t enough, she also models and hosts a podcast, Millennial Minds.

Meet Vipin Thekk, Senior Director at Ashoka and amazingly curious, spiritual, reflective, and energetic human. From Krishna to Integral Theory to evolution to the Bodhisattva vow, buckle up for this one, folks. We can always count on Vipin to take us on a stimulating ride through head, heart, and spirit.

Meet Evan Taylor, incoming divinity student at Wesley Theological Seminary, lay leader in youth and young adult ministry, designer, and perpetual creator and change-maker. Evan is always up to something, usually many things, to actively live out her faith in the community. We were lucky to collaborate with her as co-creator, facilitator, and design thinking teacher for our Interfaith Youth Innovators Summit earlier this year.

Over the past week, the world has bid farewell to civil rights icon U.S. Congressman John Lewis, with all the grandeur his life and legacy deserve. A final journey across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A procession through DC’s Black Lives Matter Plaza. The first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol. And a whole lot of talk of “good trouble,” Lewis’s own mantra and his parting advice to a new generation of activists. John Lewis will forever be remembered for his awe-inspiring life of service and leadership in pursuit of justice and equality. But let’s also remember him as “the boy from Troy.”

Meet Amira Abouhussein, Program Manager and Conflict Resolution Liaison at the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. In between frequent trips around the world for her peacebuilding work, Amira contributed her beautiful energy and passion to helping us design and pilot the Interfaith Youth Innovators Summit last month.

A year ago, we gathered an interfaith group on a snowy day in DC to listen to Peace First founder, Eric Dawson, and Peace First Fellow and ScholarCHIPS founder, Yasmine Arrington, discuss empowering young people to create change in their communities. Sufficiently inspired, a few of us from that event have joined forces to pilot an Interfaith Youth Innovators Summit in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.

Many faith traditions have long been rooted in a relationship with the Earth—particularly indigenous traditions, but also others, such as Jainism. And some early advocates of the environment and animal welfare were inspired by faith—such as Francis of Assisi and Buddhist emperor Ashoka. Yet the concept of ecotheology has developed largely within the last half century or so as the world has had to come to terms with the ecological destruction wrought by human society. Ecotheology looks at the relationship between religion and nature and seeks to find solutions to the current environmental crisis.

On January 29th, in the midst of a DC snowstorm, an interfaith, intergenerational group of friends and strangers gathered at Church of the Holy City to talk about the power of young people to lead change. Along with co-hosts Peace First, FaithJustice Foundation, and the Swedenborg Center, we were thrilled to welcome Eric Dawson, Founder and CEO of Peace First and author of Putting Peace First: 7 Commitments to Change the World, and Yasmine Arrington, Peace First Fellow and Founder and Executive Director of ScholarCHIPS, to share their wisdom.