Multi-faith spaces: How it took an assignment for me to find one in my school

Let's talk about how it took an assignment to help me discover that my college had a multi-faith prayer room.

When I started at Centennial College in Fall 2014 finding a prayer room to practise my faith was the last thing on my mind. I was in a different country on my own for the first time and I was so interested in making new friends, exploring the city and getting A's. I went through two years of attending various events on campus and on college residence but somehow I never stumbled across a prayer room.

Fast-forward to Fall 2016 when the hardest course rolls around where we work in groups to create a magazine, website and documentary. My group had lost of ideas and we randomly chose one. It so happened that millennials and religion was our topic, so we began to brainstorm story ideas. We came up with more than enough and so we each began to choose the stories we wanted to do. Multi-faith spaces wasn't my first choice, but I figured since I knew so little about it then I should try.

I started preparing for my interviews. I sent out emails to various schools and religious leaders. I contacted my friends who are religious to find out if they've used a multi-faith space. I soon found out, my friends were a little better than me, they knew that there was a space but they never used it. So I did my interviews with Reverend Glenn Empey from Trent University, Rabbi Chalom Loeub from UBC and Rachel Hammerton from Humber College. All my sources have used and know how a multi-faith space is shared between religious groups.

With all my sources based outside of Toronto, I had them send me pictures of themselves for the magazine. I realized that in order to complete that "show me moment" in my story I needed a photos of a multi-faith space. So, I immediately asked my sources but then thought, it would be better if I get it on my own. What did I do next? The most natural thing any millennial would do. I googled where to find multi-faith spaces in schools near me. To my surprise Centennial College popped up. I thought they must be referring to the main campus. After doing some more research, I found the room number to the multi-faith prayer room on my campus. I took my camera and looked for the room and I was shocked to see it there. It meant that I had walked pass the room everyday in first year without noticing lol.

I decided to help other millennials in school, who might be oblivious like myself. I've created a map below showing all the multi-faith spaces in post secondary schools in Toronto.