Young students in Berlin inspired by Saudi author's poem

by Esra'a (Bahrain)

A few months ago, Rasha from Saudi Arabia posted a poem she wrote here called “In the Moment.” She posted it simply to share it with other readers, not realizing some of the impact it would eventually have. About a month later, Rasha got this message:

My name is Malte, I am the editor of the international children’s radio station Radijojo based in Berlin. We would like to voice your beautiful poem “In the moment” in some youth radio workshops.

Of course, the idea excited us. This sounded like a great opportunity for a useful cultural exchange, which Rasha recently wrote about here.

Malte informed us that the poem was read by several 14 year old youngsters. They had a Radijojo radio Workshop about the relationship between Germany and Arab countries, where they mainly spoke about the content of Rasha’s poem. You can listen to the audio here.

Some photos of the workshop and students reading Rasha’s poem:

I think this is proof that new media can really have an impact on how people view and communicate with each other between areas where it doesn’t typically happen. Previously, teachers or instructors only had text to rely on in order to teach young students about global affairs, religion, or foreign cultures. This is one of many examples that showed how this is no longer the case, and that we have great tools to break barriers and stereotypes often enforced by mainstream media outlets. Now students can directly get in touch with other students in different parts of the world in order to hear from our own perspectives, what is happening and what we feel about it, what our culture is like, how we practice our faith, and what we feel about the current state of our societies.

Another example is the teleconferences we occassionally have with high school students in the USA. These were documented by the Skype blog as well which said:

“It’s satisfying to see young people use the Web, and Skype, to strive toward understanding across barriers not of their own making. This particular initiative won’t bring about change on its own, but even a marathon consists of lots of little steps.”

When Rasha published that poem, she had no idea how inspirational it would be to people elsewhere, and what others will be doing with it. This outreach has been inspiational for us here too, knowing that the simple act of sharing our thoughts can end up making a big difference in terms of making people truly aware of who we are and what we represent.

We want to thank Malte for reaching out, the young students in Berlin who did a great job reciting the poem, and everyone who has ever been interested in our opinions and our lives. Participating in this site to me personally has been an educational experience and we hope that others feel the same. I have learned so much about others by speaking with them, and the amazing video/audio technologies we have today make this exchange much more effective. Thanks indeed to everyone involved.