Collaboration of Interreligious Workers and the Perception of Help Seekers in Interreligious Organizations

Ersta Sköndal Bräcke University Department of Social Sciences Master’s program in voluntary social work with focus on organizational analysis and development in civil society, 120 university credits Collaboration of interreligious workers and the perception of help seekers in interreligious organizations. Christabel Hellberg Degree project in voluntary social work at advanced level, 30 university credits Course: SM40, D thesis, Master's degree Supervisor: Johan von Essen Examiner: Lars Sörnsen Acknowledgement Foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who participated in my research. I would not have been given the opportunity to do this research without your participation. Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor Johan Von Essen, professor, researcher and lecturer at Ersta Sköndal Bräcke Högskola for your generosity, support and guidance. I would like to thank Hanna Berg for your plentiful support and encouragement. Furthermore, I would like to thank Johan Gärde, lecture and docent at Ersta Sköndal Bräcke Högskola for your support and guidance. Last but not least I would like to thank my family starting with my niece Patricia Kamwela for your abundant support; my husband Robert Hellberg and my son Nils Hellberg for your generosity, support, and understanding; my parents-in-law Evy Hellberg and Ingvar Hellberg, who made it possible for me to attend the Swedish language classes by taking care of my son; my late mother Grace Mwania and my daddy Joseph Mwania Manyenze, who supported gender equality and made it possible for me to attend secondary school which wasn’t possible for many girls in my home village. Thank you all for your support. 2 Abstract “if we do not meet with people from another faith or with another knowledge then we will not be able to integrate with each other. The purpose is to be ourselves, not to change one another but to understand one another…” (No. 1) The main aim of this thesis was to generate the needed knowledge on how interfaith organizations cooperate in their social work to aid help seekers despite the religious differences they may have, as well as to identify the obstacles the interfaith workers face in their cooperation. In addition, this thesis will also discuss the help seekers’ personal opinions concerning the help they get from the interreligious organizations. This research is a qualitative research with a case study design, based on materials collected from eighteen people by the use of semi-structured materials. The eighteen people have been represented by four leaders, two project leaders, one employee, four volunteers and seven help seekers. Both deductive1 and inductive2 methods were used in processing the themes used in this research. The research ethic has been considered in this paper. Both the social capital theory and the Allport’s intergroup contact theory were used in this thesis. These theories and former existing research helped in choosing the predetermined themes and in analyzing the results from the collected data which are: Religion and Freedom of religion, Common Goals, Respect- Understanding and acceptance, Responsibility and mission’s orientation, Neutral place, Interreligious dialogue, Applicable working platform, Complementary religion, Political view. The results of this thesis showed that the interfaith organizations can work as a compliment to one another in order to make the society work. This paper showed that interfaith organizations need to create common mutual norms with different roles in order to make the cooperation work. The common goals need to be very clear for both parties and additionally the structure of the system was very complex to explain to others or to introduce to the new workers. Furthermore, this thesis showed that there are people against interfaith cooperation for different reasons. Some of the obstacles the interfaith workers faced during their cooperation will be described more in the analysis part. Some of the barriers were fear 1 Predetermined themes chosen with the help of theory 2 Themes resorted from the collected data through coding. 3 from both the church members and the Stockholm Mosque on how the organization will run, which changes and consequences the church members will face and so forth. One of the interfaith organization leaders invited someone from outside the organization who gave a speech that didn’t align with their norms. They had cases which were forced to be taken up with the help of lawyers. It requires time to create and implement a functioning common structure. The common goal was not very clear for both parties and the system were very complex to explain to others or to introduce it to the new workers. Given the demographics, the volunteers had more extensive work experience and were mission oriented, which made them tend to focus on their commitments. The help seekers were very thankful concerning the help they got and wanted to do the same for others. The creation of trust through bonding and bridging was the central element or principles in this thesis, which are the keys to making the interfaith cooperation run. Keywords: Interreligious, multireligious, interfaith, multi-faith, interreligious dialogue, interreligious cooperation, trust. 4 Content 1. Introduction 7 2. Background 8 2.2 Aim 13 2.3 Research questions 14 3. Previous research 14 3.1 Religion for Peace 15 3.2 Changes in the creation of trust and mutual understanding 17 3.3 Interfaith leaders 17 3.4. Factors needed to make social traps work 18 3.4.1 Paradigms for the interfaith relations 20 3.5 The determinant trust 20 3.6 Inclusion of migrants and refugees in the whole society 21 3.7 Migrants view of participating in interfaith organization 22 3.7.1 Benefits and barriers of multireligious organizations 23 3.8 Thesis relation to previous research 24 4. Theory 25 4.1 How the used theories relate to one another 30 5. Method 30 5.1 Material 32 5.2 Notes of the interviewed people 33 5.3 Data collection and the selection of interviewees 33 5.4 The interview process 35 5.5 Coding 37 5.6 Research Ethics 38 5.7 My own pre- knowledge 38 5.8 Reliability, validity and generalization 40 5.9 Analytical method 42 6 The results of the interviews 42 6.1 Religion and Freedom of religion 43 6.1.1 Common Goals 47 6.1.2 Respect, understanding and acceptance 49 6.1.3 Responsibility and mission’s orientation 51 6.1.4 Neutral place 52 6.1.5 Interreligious dialogue 54 6.1.6 Applicable working platform 57 6.1.7 Complementary religions 58 5 6.1.8 Political view 60 6.2 Advantages of the interreligious cooperation 61 6.2.1 Flexibility 61 6.2.2 Being open and objective 63 6.2.3 Complement 64 6.2.4 Common norms 66 6.2.5 Thankfulness 67 6.2.6 Changes and acceptance 67 6.3 Barriers the participants faced 68 6.3.1 Changes in their working form (structure) 69 6.3.2 Acceptance 69 6.3.3 Complex 70 6.3.4 Authorities cooperation 70 6.4 The help seekers’ point of view 71 7. Analysis 72 8. Conclusions 82 9. Discussion 84 9.1. Suggestions for further research 86 10. References 88 11 Interview Guide (appendixes) 93 6 1. Introduction It is becoming more common to witness different religions unite together in social work in order to help the needy. This does not mean that religions are changing their symbols or religious people are changing their beliefs and faith in order to cooperate with one another, rather that they are finding ways in which they can collaborate in social work and help the needy. This is very necessary because religion can be used to create violence, as stated by several researchers (Gärde, 2014, McGuire, 2002, Geels & Wikström, 2017). The interfaith organizations get together for a mission, not to change one another’s faith, which can cause misunderstanding and conflicts among one another. A number of the religious interviewees were raised in their faith, and chose to follow in their parent’s commitment to their religion because they believe it to be true. Within these interreligious organizations are people of all levels of faith, from the very religious believers to non-believers. In Sweden specifically, the religions of Islam, Evangelical Lutheran church, and Catholicism are coordinating together in social work to help immigrants, which is surprising given Sweden’s traditionally secular society and history. Sweden has moved from being a monopoly state church to pluralism due to different factors 3. The Good Neighbors and God’s House are two organizations that provide examples of interreligious organizations working together in order to help the needy in Sweden. Their efforts with uniting people from different groups to help vulnerable populations in society provided a framework on what it takes for interreligious collaboration to make it work. This thesis will therefore generate the needed knowledge on interfaith organizations’ cooperation in their social work to aid help seekers despite religious differences they may have, as well as identify the obstacles the interfaith workers face in their cooperation. In addition, this thesis will also discuss the help-seekers’ personal opinions concerning interreligious4 cooperation and the help they are getting. The entirety of this paper will therefore focus on: interfaith cooperation, factors that make the collaboration work and remain sustainable, the difficulties the organizations or the people who work in the organizations face, and the advantages of interreligious cooperation. The survey in this thesis was conducted with people working in two different interreligious organizations known as “Guds Hus5”, which means “God’s House”, and “Goda Grannar6”, which means “Good Neighbors”. The God’s House organization was founded in 3 The history of Sweden and the role of secularization in Sweden will be explained shortly under point 2.

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