Can you believe it - halfway through the project at the end of this week!!
I'm sorry a lot of you couldn't make it to our meeting last week. It's good to get to know one another and also to discuss the experiences you're having with the project, strategies to take in order to push the dialogue further.
Can I remind you that this week you will be discussing the role of religion in your personal lives and societies, so please read the texts which will help you have a richer discussion with your groups.
Also, the deadline for your video project is Wednesday 20th November. When I met some of you last week none of those who were there had started watching thevideos - please make sure you start if you haven't yet and get to work on creating the videos, don't leave it to the last minute!!!
Also please remember to write your diaries!!! These are fundamental if you want to receive credits for participating in the the project.
Francesca
I'm sorry a lot of you couldn't make it to our meeting last week. It's good to get to know one another and also to discuss the experiences you're having with the project, strategies to take in order to push the dialogue further.
Can I remind you that this week you will be discussing the role of religion in your personal lives and societies, so please read the texts which will help you have a richer discussion with your groups.
Also, the deadline for your video project is Wednesday 20th November. When I met some of you last week none of those who were there had started watching thevideos - please make sure you start if you haven't yet and get to work on creating the videos, don't leave it to the last minute!!!
Also please remember to write your diaries!!! These are fundamental if you want to receive credits for participating in the the project.
Francesca
Today I attended my fourth session; I cannot believe we have already done half of our meetings. First achievement of the week: no technical problems, at least not for me, so it was a little less stressing. The topic of today’s discussion was “the role of religion”, in our life, in society, in politics and related with extremisms. We were divided in three groups of three and we discussed about the importance of religion for us, for our country’s culture and how this influences us. I learned some new things about Muslim and about what Eastern Countries know about Christians/Catholics.
RispondiEliminaAll together we talked about extremisms and extremists. The majority agreed that many people immediately relate Muslim people with terrorism and extremism because they are shown in this way.
I was surprised because almost no-one remembered Norway’s bomb-attack in 2011. We talked about it because one of our facilitators lives there.
The main problem of this group is that many people are really shy and do not talk too much, so always the same people share opinion and the majority of them lives in the Western world, so we do not get many opinions from the Eastern one.
However, I really enjoyed today’s session because I managed to express my opinions using my voice and hearing other’s opinions.
Hope next week will be even better.
Have a nice week everyone and enjoy your sessions.
Francesca
Week 4
RispondiEliminaSo we are already in the middle of November and in week 4 of the Soliya program. I was very excited to this week’s session as I missed last week. It's mid-term so to say and it's good to look back at the last sessions and see how far our group went from there.
In this session Nahid (f) had less work to do, as we were very independent, asked questions to each other and kept the conversation going by ourselves. That's a huge difference to the last sessions in which we desperately needed our facilitator/s for a continuous and flowing debate. It was great to see how we approached the different topics and were curious about each other, about the personal opinions and experiences of the other group members.
Unfortunately it still feels as if our group would consist only of 4-5 people as 2-3 people are not taking an active part in the group meetings. I'm not sure if they are shy, or if they are having technical problems, but even when asked to answer or pose questions in the chat they rarely did. I'm not judging as they'll have good reasons for it but it would be great to see them more involved and to learn more about them too. Maybe they are also a bit afraid because of their English skills.
However I'm happy that the other members are so curious and active, which really establishes a group feeling. We learn more and more facts about each other, our personal experiences and opinions about our life’s and keep getting more comfortable in asking also more personal questions.
In this week 4 has been particularly great, as we exchanged very personal stories about the most various topics which let us grow as a whole. We talked about the first time we saw/experienced snow, about how we react when we get angry, about bad internship experiences, our music taste, costs of education in our countries and what our plans are in this regard, ...
We also talked about issues in relation to the readings of this week. We touched the topic about the veil and what we think about the laws and regulations in this regard. We talked about civil, cultural and religious rights and safety issues and discussed religion in school systems and religion and the state.
But the articles were merely an introduction for us to another topic: we talked a lot about what role religion plays in our life’s, if we grew up in a religious family/community,... it was interesting to see how we started with the articles, which some of us picked up and referred too, but how we actually focused on our life’s and on exchanging different perceptions we experienced.
We basically remained on this personal level, talking about how we learned about other religions, how we experience other religions, how our own perceptions changed or strengthened because of the contact with other religions.
One issue which continued coming up in talking about music, film, TV and culture was how the American culture is exported to other countries through these media tools. We found that we like the same American TV shows but that we had quiet different music tastes. I also enjoyed learning about how many languages my group members speak and when they learned them (by personal interest or trough school subjects) or about their travel plans. Sana from Pakistan asked me and the Adriana (the only American girl present) if we would travel to Pakistan and so we shared why yes and why not. We then analysed our question in regard to culture, gender and safety reasons. I also particularly enjoyed what Adam shared about Tunisia, how secular the country used to be and how after the Arab Spring it's getting more religious e.g. before the revolution in Tunisia veils were banned in schools and now they are allowed. As much as you can read on newspapers about the situation in other countries, it can't compare to the sharing of personal experiences. While articles may state facts and backgrounds better, personal stories just give you totally different perspective of the life in another country.
EliminaWe shared our opinions of whether religion is actually a good topic to talk about or if it's rather difficult and how this might change according to the situation and the people we are with. We talked about personal encounters we had with other religions and how/if they affected us and our perception of religion.
This week was filled with wonderful ideas, opinions, experiences, stories, of general and specific issues, regulations, stereotypes, expectations, of curious questions and insightful answers. I'm really happy and proud of my group that we are able to share and disagree on so many topics and that we continue to open up and move forward.
Carmen
Dear Diary 3,
RispondiEliminaOn Saturday night I went to a concert and I lost my voice! So, in the last session I just typed what I thought. It was a great pity because the topics were really thought-provoking. Divided in small groups, we were stimulated to discuss about the role of the religion inside the society and politics. Then, a little game: translating “hello” and “goodbye” in our original languages. What surprised me is that placing religious signs in the schools of the other countries is considered a breach of law, instead here there are even at the University. After that, we debated about social movements like Arab spring and the influence of social media in each country. The next time the main argument will be the problems related to the gender and if there will be enough time how our countries protect the environment. This week is the most challenging because we have to prepare a video project and the deadline is on 20th. I still have to watch all the material and I hope to finish in time.
Have a nice week,
Bye
Clarissa
Week 4
RispondiEliminaI had a very interesting session, one of the best so far :-).We talked about Church and its influence in our daily life. I was very impress to see that my peers from Muslim World are very devoted to their religion. They praise 4/5 times a day and have this wonderful and strong relation with God. I came from a Eastern country were religion is still strong and people are still going to church but I am not very religious. I believe in God but I am not a churchy person. I think Church should not mix with Politics or at least to have a very small contribution .Because of the Church many referendums were not approved in the past , some changes were made but not significantly . I would like to have same enthusiasm and heart open toward Church like they have.
We had also a break out room and thanks to this activity we could talk and know each other better. In my small room group was a girl from Egypt and another one from Jordan.They asked me about Hijab ,what I know about it? My information were not very clear so I didn't want to say something wrong and I asked the girls to explain to me about it.
Hijab is a veil and in Islam God ask to any girl to cover her body. I thought that hijab can be wore only by married women.Then we talked about languages , food ,music etc.
I really enjoyed this session!!!
WEEK 4
RispondiEliminaOn Monday I had my fourth session, fourth session means we have already done half of our meetings. Steve reminded us this thing at the beginning and no one could believe it.
Also this time we were 8, Mona was missing the session, but the conversation worked well, even if we were 8 students. Unfortunately there are some students who don’t speak very much, maybe because they’re shy, or maybe for other reasons, maybe they think they’re not so good at English and usually they type their opinions in the chat instead of speaking. I don’t think this is a good thing because they learn less than what they can learn by having a real conversation. Steve and Erin, our facilitators, often ask these students to try to use the microphone, and sometimes they do it, but they write in a paper something and then they read..this is not the same thing as having a conversation.
Fortunately the others always speak and have always something to say, so we don’t have big problems during the session, Steve and Erin don’t need to ask us questions or to stimulate us to keep the discussion going on. But it will be great to know the opinions of everyone.
The topic of this week was religion and the influence it has on the society, on people lives. We were supposed to read some articles and to watch a video as well. The articles were very interesting, some were about the role of religion in Europe, some about extremists and moderates in Islam religion, so there were many issues to discuss about. Not everyone had read the articles, but this was not a problem, the conversation worked as well, religion is a value which we can found in every country, in every society and for this reason everyone has an opinion to share.
Before starting with this discussion, we talked for some minutes about ourselves as we always do in each session, to discover something more about our classmates. This time we talked about food, about our favourite food and the typical food of our country. I had a lot to say about Italy: Pizza, Pasta and of course they asked me many questions about Italian food which is very famous all over the world.
Then we passed to the main topic of the discussion: religion. First of all we talked about the violence of Islam, Steve introduced this issue and, as it was to expect, the discussion was passionate.
RispondiEliminaPeople from Muslim World defended their religion, of course, they are committed Islam is a peaceful religion and that there isn’t a relation between Islam and the terrorism. We are only 3 students coming from the Western World, Sarah, Mirza and I, so we are the minority of the group, but we are the three who speak more, so we are always able to defend our view, even if other students are very committed of their ideas. Of course no one of us think that Islam is a violent religion, we don’t want to make generalizations and to say that all Islam people are terrorists and this was clear in the conversation. But I think we cannot deny there is a part of Islam which is violent and aggressive and Sarah and Mirza agreed with me.
The topic of September 11 came out and about this issue there were different opinions, especially because Sarah and Mirza came from America, so they feel this issue very close. Someone, from Muslim World, arrived to say that September 11 was just an accident, that there is no evidence that this attack had been made by Islamic terrorism. Someone is committed the attack had been made by Jews, because there were no Jews in the buildings which were attacked, so there were no Jews who died. Well, I can understand most of Islamic people have nothing to do with the terrorism and the violence, and I believe Islam is a peaceful religion, but I also think we cannot deny some events such as the Attack to America in September 11.
There was a lot to say about this issue, and I’m sure everyone had other things and opinions to share with the others, but Steve changed issue, to make the conversation going on, and we talked about the article concerning the role of religion in Europe. In the article the author explained how the religion is becoming less and less important, lots of people declare they don’t go to the church and they don’t practice the religion and this situation is common in many European countries.
Unfortunately I’m the only students coming from Europe, so I was the only one who could speak about the topic, but it was not a monologue, the others asked me many things. I express clearly my opinion, in Europe people are interested in money, work, success, everything which seem to be very far from religion and for this reason people are removing religion from their lives. They think they can live better without religion.
I also think this depends on where you live, for example in small towns people are more religious, because small places are more traditional, but in big cities such as Milan or Rome it’s different, the life is more chaotic, people are normally interested in money, work and success, so they’re less religious.
We faced then another topic: the Islamic headscarf. There was an article about this as well.
RispondiEliminaGirls devote to Islam explain us what it means for them to wear the headscarf, they said that it is a symbol of their religion, of course it’s not everything in the Islamic religion, but it is a part of it. They see the headscarf as an individual liberty, a freedom of speech. They chose the Islamic religion, and it wants the headscarf, so they have to wear it, they said this is their Islam and this is their rule, they have to follow it.
No one of us has something against the headscarf, for me it’s not a problem to see a girl wearing a headscarf, if it’s her choice to wear it and If they want to wear it, I don’t think there’s a problem.
Nobody disagreed about this topic, but going on with the discussion, there was another debate, always related to religion. Islamic people, especially women, are committed that if we chose a religion we have to follow all the aspects of the religion, and that’s why they wear the headscarf. I didn’t agree with this statement, I think we can disagree with some aspects of the religion. For example I’m catholic, but I don’t share all the aspects of the Catholic religion. I think religion is more individualistic, we are free to interpret the religion, I don’t want to believe in something just because it’s written in a book.
The last part of the session was a bit different from the other sessions, Mirza had asked the facilitators to facilitate a discussion during the class, so he made us some questions.
The topic was again religion because he said he’s very interested in it and he asked us questions such as how religious we are, if religion play a role in our societies, what our first experiences about religion were and finally he wanted to know if we were given a religion or if we could choose a religion.
In my opinion this last part of the session was not so interesting, we just answered some questions, but there was no discussion or debate, maybe Mirza is doing a research and these answers were useful for him, but for me it was not so interesting.
This session was great, as the others, but maybe the discussion could have been more profound in some aspects, and some people could have shared more opinions, but in general it was useful, and every time I learn something more.
For next week we have to finish the video project, and mine is quite finished, I’m looking forward to see the other projects, the topic was interesting and I think all works will be great!
MARTA
Week 4
RispondiEliminaFirst we lost some time with technical problems but after all we solved them and we started to speak again.
This week, the session was very interesting and i really enjoyed it. We spoke about taboos in our societies and the differences between how generations deal with them.
Some things stroke me most this session. For example i discovered that in general in Pakistan people can't talk about sex, only married couples are allowed and it is supposed to be behind closed doors. And it is very common the marriage between cousins in Pakistan, but also in Egypt. One girl in our group is engaged to her cousin and she has to marry him in the future. Wow.
Then we had to do an activity. We were divided into small groups ( groups had to move to a different room) and we had the freedom to speak of different subjects.
Well, that was interesting. We spoke more than in the usual session and in an funny way we were forced to speak. The facilitator wasn't present so there wasn't nobody to help us in typing. In my group we spoke about travels,sports we usually do and then about food! It was amazing to discover that in Tunisia one girl has some italian friends who cook very often pizza and the other girl that was in my group living in US comes to Italy many times and she loves "Spaghetti with vongole" as she said.
That point made me feel so close to them.
Hope to discover another similar things the next session!
Have a nice week everyone! :)
Cristina Leonte
This week the session was a bit peculiar: after rejoining with everyone as usual we split up into different groups, each made up of about 3 people, with the facilitators seldom peeping in.
RispondiEliminaI got to end up with Jamiya (US) and Eman (Egypt). I was glad we were in the same group because I had already got the chance to share some private messages with both of them, and I knew they were very open, intelligent people.
We were not given a specific task, but could talk about whatever we wanted. We started by talking about our families and how we were raised. I learned a lot of personal facts about them, which was great because when there's all of us it's hard to manage so many people talking about themselves. Jamiya talked about how he was raised in Jamaica, by rastafarian parents - I had never met anyone of that background before - and his family is very close. Eman, on the other hand, was very hard to understand because her voice didn't come very clear, but I learnt she comes from a numerous family, also very close. Then I asked them about their expectations on the family of their own they will build, and while I had very similar views to Eman's, who is already married and is hoping to have many happy kids, Jamiya didn't want to get married at all. I suppose those different views do reflect the cultures we were raised in: although mine was never a close family, perhaps I am influenced by the Italian traditional portrait, which in its principles is similar to that of Egypt; Jamiya lives in the United States, a more industrial and individualistic environment.
Then we moved on to politics, and neither of us feels that the government represent us. I seems that while an outsider would look at different countries and think that some obviously better serve their citizens, people all over the world share a feeling of not being involved enough in public decisions.
I was very happy we had time to get closer and know each other better. Actually I wish there were more sessions like this, perhaps with different people every time: they give a real chance to learn and share opinions with the members of the group.
To be honest, when we all joined back to the main meeting room it felt like something was being spoilt, and nobody was too open about what they had talked in their group - like if that would have broken some feeling of loyalty.
I am very excited about the next session because, now more than ever, I am curious about knowing more about the other participants as well!
Margherita
This week’s meeting was quite interesting. The main topic was religion and our facilitators asked us to speak openly about whatever we wanted to share. At the beginning of the discussion I felt really excited because I had many questions for my Muslim mates. However, unfortunately almost all of the other members of the group had technical problems and no one was able to speak. I must admit I felt really upset because there is a girl from Sousse who never ever had been able to talk so far, she only writes in the chat.
RispondiEliminaAnyway, we tried to manage to discuss and the Muslim girls started by saying that Islam is a religion based on forgiveness and it has two main branches, even if the majority of people is Sunni. Then I asked them which is Muslim’s position towards gay people and they replied that omosexuals are not encouraged by Islam and that Muslims don’t like them. Yusra, a girl from Pakistan, said that she attends a Christian College and over there a professor gave a talk in which he stated that gay people are unnatural. She doesn’t agree, as she believes that anyone should have the right to love whoever he/she wants.
After that we moved on and we started talking about whether religion affects our Country’s policy or not. Muslim girls replied that Islam is deeply linked to policy. David and I said that in Italy there is a sort of a “Christian tradition”: politicians would often put Christian values in their manifestos during election campaigns and religion classes are present in schools. Yusra explained that in Pakistan the government is not influenced by Islam at all.
Then our facilitators asked us to split into two group and keep on talking about any topic we felt interested in. As I already said, due to the technical problems in my group we ended up writing in the chat box. First we kept on talking about religion but then Yara, a Muslim girl, asked us to change the topic and so we shared a bit of our interests (movies, travels, the place where we live).
So, to sum up, this week’s session was a little disappointing because the topic was so deep and personal that it deserved a much more fluent conversation. I do hope next meeting won’t be ruined by technical problems!
Fourth session, halfway! Wow, can't believe that! This session was probably the most interesting so far!
RispondiEliminaWe started discussing about religion, that was one of the topics of the readings due to this week.
Everyone explained the role of religion in his/her life. Surprisingly an American guy said that religion, for him, is one of the most important things in his life, since he also went to a Catholic school, and for a Turkish girl, religion was not so important.
For the other members was as I have expected: for who lives in the East religion is one of the main part of his/her life, for who lives in the West is not so important.
Then we moved on another interesting topic: veil. Doaa, an Egyptian girl who wears the niqab explained us why she wears it, than everyone gave his/her opinion on it and I explained why in our European countries governments are step by step banning the usage of veils which covers women faces.
The debate was kind of heated, since Doaa was the only one who energetically defended the usage of niqab and other types of veils.
Then our two facilitators split up the group in 3, and asked us to go in the “breakout rooms” to getting to know each other better.
I was with Doaa and Chris, an American guy, and we kept on talking about the veil, role of women in Western/Eastern world. It was really interesting because Doaa told us that her religion, Islam, protects and takes care of women, and that they have more rights than men. That was shocking, since I thought that Islam mistreated women! And she also told me that they prefer them to wear veil in order to protect them from bad men.
Then we run out of time, and we had to conclude. I hope next time we will use breakout rooms again! It was a great opportunity to know my mates better!
I'm looking forward to the next meeting!!! Francesca
Fourth session, halfway! Wow, can't believe that! This session was probably the most interesting so far!
RispondiEliminaWe started discussing about religion, that was one of the topics of the readings due to this week.
Everyone explained the role of religion in his/her life. Surprisingly an American guy said that religion, for him, is one of the most important things in his life, since he also went to a Catholic school, and for a Turkish girl, religion was not so important.
For the other members was as I have expected: for who lives in the East religion is one of the main part of his/her life, for who lives in the West is not so important.
Then we moved on another interesting topic: veil. Doaa, an Egyptian girl who wears the niqab explained us why she wears it, than everyone gave his/her opinion on it and I explained why in our European countries governments are step by step banning the usage of veils which covers women faces.
The debate was kind of heated, since Doaa was the only one who energetically defended the usage of niqab and other types of veils.
Then our two facilitators split up the group in 3, and asked us to go in the “breakout rooms” to getting to know each other better.
I was with Doaa and Chris, an American guy, and we kept on talking about the veil, role of women in Western/Eastern world. It was really interesting because Doaa told us that her religion, Islam, protects and takes care of women, and that they have more rights than men. That was shocking, since I thought that Islam mistreated women! And she also told me that they prefer them to wear veil in order to protect them from bad men.
Then we run out of time, and we had to conclude. I hope next time we will use breakout rooms again! It was a great opportunity to know my mates better!
I'm looking forward to the next meeting!!! Francesca B
In this session almost everyone was online this week just two peoples missed and a new member from Tunisia joint us. We started talking about music. Our facilitators asked us about our musical preferences. Then, we had a short speaking in which each of us could ask other members of the group something about our tradition or cultures and through that knowing us better. After this first part of the session we introduced already the main topic of the day because one american girl asked about religion. She asked how religion influences a culture, our own culture. It was very interesting and I could undertand deeply how impossible it seems to separate civil life and religion in muslim societies, we also talked about how much civil must be the Law and once again religion for muslim’s members is always in the first place for everything. However, all western societies members were agree that religion also influences our culture in many aspect but in aspect of life law should to be separated from the religion. Another interesting point we talked if when more than one religion have to survive peacefully together are respect every faith. At the end we talked a little bit about what kind of veil are banded in Europe and if a woman is free or not to wear it. The session was participated and as usual very respectul and open-minded. After some weeks in this project I started to be more curious about arabs and muslim culture.
RispondiElimina