Soliya: Building Bridges Between the West and the Arab World
In a previous post, I mentioned an initiative called Soliya,I didn’t elaborate on it back then as I wanted to dedicate a post to talking about this wonderful initiative that brings youth from the west and the Arab world together to dialogue and form a common ground of understanding.
Founded by Locas Welch, Soliya utilizes 21st century technology to bring students from the West (mainly the United States and Western Europe) and the Arab world in a credit worthy online interactive class of conflict resolution, where students see and hear each other through web cams and headsets, and engage in facilitated dialogue sessions on topics selected based on a curriculum set by the universities in partnership with Soliya. Universities in the U.S and Europe include Harvard University (US) , Georgetown University (U.S) , University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) , University of Bergen (Norway) and Dublin City University (Ireland) , in the Arab world AlAkhawayn University (Morocco) , University of Bahrain ( Bahrain ), University of Jordan ( Jordan), American University of Beirut (Lebanon) and American University in Cairo, see complete list here.
I will be working as a volunteer with Soliya facilitating sessions next semester, it’s an experience I look very much forward to , and will definitely be sharing it here.
We will start an online training for the facilitators next week, we were given articles and texts as reading materials for the training that I’m enjoying reading so much.
I leave you now with an approximately 6-minute report that CNN made on Soliya, it gives a very good insight about what Soliya is all about, in case you don’t have time to read on its website!.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKEjT4t-e-Q[/youtube]
Join the Conversation
Per usual, Mohammad, you are doing some really cool work. Please do keep us updated.
Thanks PV,I’m just trying my best to make a positive effect on the world no matter how small:-)
hi there
Salam,I pick up your adress from a site in the internet and i really find
it interesting.
Well,to introduce ourselves , We a Moroccans youth intersting to
creat an association called
youth for peace and Dialogue between cultures,we are looking to build a
world where young poeple from diffrent religions backgrounds come togather
to create understanding and respect by servibg thier communities.
I’d like you ,please,to send me any informations you find it relevan
to my interests and participate at any training or an exchange program to
know and learn from each others
thank you,
Love and Peace
Zakaria El hamel
The President,The Founder
Thank you very much Zak, that sounds really noble, if at all possible you could send me an e-mail at azraq@mideastyouth.com , with more details about your project, and I would love to help you out.
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