Armadale group of families ‘see all as friends’ through neighbourhood festivals 

In this personal reflection, Armadale Baha’i Padma Wong shares how her community recently worked to organise a new family festival with the hope of embracing more families into the spiritual education process unfolding in the neighbourhood. 

For the past three years, the community of Armadale in the southeast of Perth has held family festivals to bring our community, and the widening circles of friends together in a fun yet thoughtful way. 

The space we use to plan the festivals is the Local Reflection Meeting (LRM), which is held every three months. Having a concrete aim in the LRM means that the community – adults, youth and children – are able to contribute. This is the closest our community has come to universal participation. To tie the planning together, the local Baha’i governing body, the Local Spiritual Assembly, has appointed an LRM team of five, who meet once every three months. 

The festivals themselves have been joyful affairs, with outdoor activities, craft, study, and music all happening at once. The Baha’i community comes together, along with many friends, especially families from the children’s classes and devotional meetings. But what has been missing is people coming from the local neighbourhood – strangers who would then become friends. One new step taken to address this challenge was to hold the festival with a group of families in the zone of PiaraWaters/Harrisdale, which is home to numerous young families. 

Then one member hit on a wonderful idea: to promote the festival through a targeted seven-day Facebook campaign. This was a new idea even to her, and she feels she was guided to have that light bulb moment. More of that later. 

The LRM gathering had been given the task of basing the family festival on the recent letter from the Universal House of Justice dated 19 March 2025, particularly the quote attributed to Abdul-Baha on the home: 

The LRM team collated the ideas shared from the LRM gathering. We had learnt that having parallel activities running at the same time dissipated the energy of the attendees. Also, since this was a festival to strengthen family bonds, the activities should allow all ages to participate together. Outdoor activities included bat and ball races, fishing, ‘footie’, tug of war and activities that all could participate in.

As we were getting started, families started to arrive, announcing that they had come for the children’s festival. Most had heard of it from the Facebook campaign. Others saw the banner we had put up and walked in to see what was happening. 

Some of us wondered what they would make of our simple outdoor activities. Had they been expecting ferris wheels and candy floss? But we were pleasantly surprised that many took to the games with enthusiasm. As we were playing together, we were able to answer questions such as: “What is Baha’i?”, “How often do you do this?”, “What other activities do you have?”. One mother also said, “thank you for welcoming my son and I so warmly!” 

Most families then joined us for the indoor activities, which consisted of board games, decorating the quote about the home and painting a cut-out of a home. During these activities, more discussion, exchange of details, and friendships made so easily. 

It was then time for our final session. Some members shared their art; there was then a fun-filled quiz on Armadale City, the Armadale community, and the Nine Year Plan. This was held through Kahoot, an online-quiz app. A community member composed and sang a song about neighbourhoods, a group of youth performed an acro-dance, and the finale was community singing of two songs related to families.

Pizza followed, while our new friends shared how much they had enjoyed the afternoon, even as more families walked in to find out what was happening. We are a small community, but one lass found among the Baha’is her former teacher from university (who had shown her a kindness she never forgot). 

Thus ended our family festival, the most successful one yet. 85 people attended in all, with about 30 from the broader community, and at least 10 families who had just walked in. We have three families confirmed to bring their kids to the next children’s class, and all expressed their eagerness for future activities. As we left, we realised that in this environment, it had been easy to follow ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s admonition: 

So, what will the follow-up look like? That will be the delightful topic of consultation at the upcoming Feast, and for future planning of the LRM Team. And that magical letter on families? This will be a blueprint for study and action, as we reflect on aspects such as raising children, choosing a partner, looking after the elderly, how to be a spiritual family and so many more. Clearly, families are desperate to know. 

Please God, we may achieve it!