The Andrew Wingate episode launches Thursday 12th March. See more episodes at the homepage of Ypsilonsamtaler
Andrew Wingate is the founder and first director of St Phillip’s Centre in Leicester Mid England. He is a theologian from Cambridge and has been serving as teacher in seminaries both i South India and England. He was Her Majesty the Queens Chaplain and is awarded the order Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to the community. With his colleagues Suleiman Nagdi MBE, DR Shanthikumar Hettiarachchi and others, he developed a Centre for Learning and Engagement in St Phillip´s Church. The neighbourhood is caracterized by a substantial percentage of citizens from Indian and Muslim background. A big mosque is situated close to the Centre. St Phillip´s Centre offers courses for the Municipality, Clergy, Police and others providing a better understanding of the multi cultural and multi faith society.
My first visit to Leicester in 2007 made a great impact and was seminal to my work in Drammen. Andrew, Suleman and Shanthi has been my mentors and friends since then. All three of them has visited Drammen several times. Shanthi and Suleman helped inspire the start of Drammen og omegn tros- og livssynsforum - DOTL (Drammen district Faith and Life Stance Forum ) in September 2007. The Mayor of Drammen, Mr Tore Opdal Hansen first visited Leicester in March 2008. It is fair to say that Andrew and St Phillip´s Centre has strongly impacted Drammen in many ways.
The podcast is normally in Norwegian language. Every now and then we will launch an episode in English. This is the first one. Please stay tuned and find new ones coming. A new episode of Ypsilonsamtaler is released every Thursday morning. You will find Ypsilonsamtaler in most podcast apps.
Ypsilonsamtaler (Ypsilon Conversations) is a podcast with Ivar Flaten, Director of the Church Dialogue Centre of Drammen (Kirkelig Dialogsenter Drammen.) The centre is working with The Church of Norway, the Diocese of Tunsberg. We are working on a lot of regional and national projects where the idea is to involve in community coesion work, cultural events and projects. The Ypsilonsamtaler podcast is named after the iconic pedestrian bridge Ypsilon built in 2008. Drammen is a river town and a we like to look upon ourselves as bridge builders in several aspect of the word. The Ypsilon bridge is connected to a sound sculpture, The River Harp.
Serving as Tunsberg Diocese Dialogue Officer and Director of the Kirkelig Dialogsenter Drammen, I invite people to conversations where cross cultural encounters, immigrant experiences, daily life and lesson learned form the exchange. The invetees has made - and are making the community a better place through their work, volounteering and service in many ways.
Drammen Municipality has100.000 inhabitants after merging with two neighbouring municipalities January 2020. The citizens originate from more than 150 different nations. Here lives people with a lot of different life stories, cultural references and religious traditions. During 15 years as a minister Revd Ivar Flaten has met with many both as a minister and a dialogue partner.
Ypsilonsamtaler will hopefully give the listener new perspectives both on "the other" and oneself.
