Buddying: The Gift of Presence
When Nabila and I conceived of the idea to set up a buddying scheme at the Cambridge Crescent, we thought initially of the skills we might need to learn. Sitting in the back garden of the Cambridge Muslim College (CMC) on a blazing summer’s day, we listed the resources we would gather, the structures that would need to exist. We looked for problems so we might be prepared.
It wasn’t until months later that the heart of what Buddying might become would truly emerge. To help set up our scheme we’d hired an executive coach with a background in working with religious organisations. One morning, from his practice room couch, as he watched Nabila and I chatting away eighteen to the dozen, our coach said something like:
You two seem to get on very well – are you perhaps not already buddies – to one another?
In 2012, I think it was, Nabila and I met at one of the very first CMC coffee mornings. A speaker had come over from the U.S to talk about an organisation called T’aleef that supported converts to Islam in California, USA. There were maybe 20 of us in the CMC refectory that day. I remember a palpable hush as each of us spoke of what had brought us there.
Attending CMC coffee mornings each month since then has become a space of acceptance, a way to hear and be heard. We have read texts like the astonishing Vision of Islam by Sachiko Murata & William C Chittick, chatted of mundane and spiritual things. Fiancées and husbands, friends and siblings have attended with longtime Muslims and those new to or exploring the faith. Sharing coffee and cake, stories and woes. I have often felt as I leave that Victorian house, as though I were being lifted by some invisible balloon.
I was extremely fortunate, in the early days of entering Islam, that I had a buddy (even without calling her so) in Nabila. A person who knew the ropes and most importantly let me find my way, with a light touch.
It is this easy-going support that we wanted to take into our buddying programme. Reflected here, from a part of our Buddying training leaflet:
There are numerous reasons why we might choose to spend time with or want to help another person. Ultimately this is personal and subjective. As the buddying relationship will not necessarily develop into friendship, there is no need to have a lot in common with the person being buddied, nor do you need to instantly ‘hit it off’ and feel a spark of friendship or connection. The most important part is that you feel generally comfortable talking with them. And that you can communicate in a way that the person you are buddying understands and vice versa, and you feel open to being a steady presence for them at the various points they might need your emotional or practical support.
Of course, there are other areas at play – and these more practical considerations we explore in the training sessions for those of our Crescent members who decide to become buddies.
Since 2023, we have trained two cohorts of buddies, and every Muslim or person interested in Islam who has requested buddying support from the Crescent has been matched with one of our trained volunteers. At the end of next month (February 2025) we will meet with our next cohort for another training morning, and this time we will invite our previous trainees to join us for lunch with the intention of building a thriving and supportive community among our Crescent buddies.
Over the past 15 years since I embraced Islam, the solid pillars of the faith itself have often felt like support enough but knowing there is someone I can turn to with the weirdest of questions (!) and never be judged is a blessing that has only strengthened my faith over time.
Nowadays, when in my own work as a buddy, I sometimes wonder what the best course of action might be, how I might help my buddy in the moment, I recall that friendship and buddying are not so different. For I know that I am not a teacher, because there are already plenty of those. Nor am I my buddy’s guide, for there exists only one.
I am simply a buddy. Present, as my friend has been for me.
Josephine Hagard is the Buddying Coordinator at Cambridge Crescent.
Feel free to contact her with any questions you may have about becoming a buddy at Cambridge Crescent or if you are interested in being buddied by one of our volunteers.