“Intercultural Dialogue & Youth: Challenges – Competences – Best Practices” A transnational experiential workshop for Hons students

EDUCATION-TRAINING

What a unique experience! Fotoessa is thrilled to announce the successful completion of our 10-hour Intercultural Dialogue Workshop at Deree – The American College of Greece!

The workshop, led by Nageh Ali Hosni Khalifa from Egypt and Aspasia Protogerou, both certified Intercultural Citizenship Education trainers from the Anna Lindh Foundation, created a vibrant space for students from the International Honors Program to explore “Intercultural Dialogue and Youth: Challenges – Competences – Best Practices”.

Through experiential learning, self-discovery, and creative interaction, participants delved into topics like personal and collective identities, multiculturality, inter-dependability, and citizens’ coexistence. They also tackled common challenges such as stereotypes and prejudices, while sharpening essential intercultural skills like active listening, critical thinking and empathy. Mr. Nageh Ali Hosni Khalifa inspired participants by sharing best practices on intercultural dialogue in Egypt’s education, communities and Civil Society organizations.

A highlight of the workshop was the simulation game on intercultural dialogue, which brought the concepts to life in a fun and engaging way and provided a hands-on approach to understanding and practicing intercultural communication. Attendees participated lively in argument building and a press conference, delivered a debate and a vote and presented their action plans.

Some of the participants’ feedback:

My feelings:

  • I have become happy that I participated and gained this experience. More confident in my ability to relate to others and their experiences
  • I have become more aware
  • On the one hand I feel more positive as we can change many things and on the other hand, so many things are out of our control
  • After the experiential activities we did, I feel more comfortable in working with others as a team and more organized as to measures that can be taken to promote intercultural dialogue.
  • I am excited to take actions to make changes
  • I feel interested, curious, ambivalent, annoyed, inspired, motivated, overwhelmed, emotionally invested, contemplative, angered, tired, sobered, pensive and restless
  • I feel more positive and focused on building community within people I do not know
  • I was a bit scared of connecting and being vulnerable, but I am feeling grateful I did.

What I have learned:

  • I learned that miscommunication/divides only make problems grow bigger and dialogue helps contain them and make people closer.
  • I learned about Egyptian social issues, collective inertia and traditions in conflict with social reform
  • Some ways on how to tackle certain issues and how to discuss them.
  • To cooperate better and think heavily before drawing conclusions.
  • About the perspectives of other people and how they would go about completing a task, even if it doesn’t represent their morals.
  • To be more understanding and open to trying new things
  • I learned how different intercultural dialogue is in different cultures. It is very different in the US. So, I appreciate this experience and seeing how others improve themselves and their communities
  • About the importance of truly connecting with people around you and being part of a team

I can do:

  • I think that by helping my social circle feel what I felt here, there would be benefits
  • I can share my opinions and listen to more peoples’ expression and monologue
  • I can do more for my community. I can take more initiative and engage in events
  • I can influence my surrounding people with the ideas and through the ways we discussed.
  • I hope in the future to be as inclusive as possible and get the chance to meet new people.
  • I could start discussions with people in my life as well as do volunteer work to improve the community
  • I could reach out to people, think about the feelings of others, organize my community, talk to my friends about social issues and March!
  • Combat stereotypes and misinformation whenever I can and facilitate connections.

This workshop was organized as part of the Anna Lindh Foundation – Mobility for Action, Module 7 programme, funded by the EU and the Anna Lindh Foundation.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who participated and contributed to this enriching experience! Let’s continue to build bridges and foster inclusion, diversity, and sustainable development together!