What is bridgemakers?
It’s people who wouldn’t normally meet each other sharing a simple meal together. A family or two friends from one community invite a family or two friends from a different community and during the next four months pay them a return visit. The same process is repeated with a different community. Altogether they meet 3 families in a year.
Bridgemakers brings people together and finds that they have more in common than they have differences. Bridgemakers is building connections between people in different communities.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.Margaret Mead
Why Bridgemakers?
We face many problems in the world. We also live increasingly segregated lives. The basic philosophy of individualism, the commercialism of everything and the politics of division and fear have an isolating effect on us all.
And yet, many millions of people are wanting the same thing, a reduction in the gap between rich and poor, better human rights for everyone and a sustainable earth. We need to encourage people to meet each other. The best way is through sharing food. By meeting each other and sharing what they have in common, this shows us not how the world could be but how it is.
If we want a better world, we have to do something
ourselves. Bridgemakers is something we can all do.
The shift is already taking place with the development of
the internet, with millions of people marching for peace.
The world needs Bridgemakers to grow throughout the UK,
into Europe and across to the USA then everywhere. This
website can help do it!
Press the play button to watch a brief video (5 minutes) about the need for Bridgemakers
One family’s experience
The following article is from Saint Michael and All Angels Magazine
Last September I was approached by our magazine editor, David Paterson and asked if our family would like to participate in a thing called “Bridgemakers”. My standard response was a cagey “What does that mean, exactly?” On the face of it, it seemed quite simple. All you have to do is meet with another family from a different faith group and “get along”. Initially I thought “it’s a nice thing to do but we really don’t have the time” and the more I thought about it the more certain the family would not agree.
When I asked Colin, Kathryn and Darcie, instead of the pulling of faces I was expecting, it was a resounding “Yes”. So our fate was sealed — we had to meet people we knew nothing about and did not know from Adam.
David was really good and came round to our house for a proper “briefing”. Everything went well and we were assigned our family from the Seventh Day Adventist faith. Time went by and Christmas was fast approaching. Something needed to be done quickly or we could just forget about it and time would overtake us and that would be that. So, contact was made and after a bit of toing and froing a date was arranged to have lunch together. True to form, that date had to be rearranged — fitting in with each other’s timetables was quite a feat.
From our side of things we were a bit anxious about the meeting. We knew nothing about Seventh Day Adventists and what on earth would we talk about. We knew we should not really talk about religion, so what was left? Surprise, surprise when we met we discovered the Nicholls were an ordinary family just like us. Nigel and Sophia had two children (boys) and they talked about everyday things as well as life within their church community. A funny thing happened after we left their home — we felt we had left a friends’ home.
We carried on life as usual, enjoying Christmas and the school holidays and were looking forward to our return visit in the New Year. The date was fixed and in February we enjoyed a family lunch with friends. It was only just short of a couple of hours together, but we chatted away as if we had known each other for years. One of our topics of conversation was the future of the Bridgemakers Project. We all felt like pioneers and thought it was a very worthwhile “achievement”. We looked forward to new unsuspecting friends yet to come whilst enjoying the friendship of those already met.
