Salaam Impact
This is an email I got from an AIESECer in Austria about the Salaam program. Thanks Kaisa.
Hi Jen,
Greetings from Austria, I hope everything is fine and that you enjoined your tripto Egypt.Just wanted to mention something very funny. I was at the Preparation Seminarfor our SNs 2 weeks ago and I talked there with one of the girls of theOC. She asked me about my name, if I have any Arabic roots and so on. FinallyI found out, that her name is Kasia (Salaam trainee 2003).
We talked a lot about Egypt, some of the AIESECers there and so on and it was so cool. Next day Ihad to make a session/country presentation about Egypt for the SNs and we(me and Kasia) talked about Egypt. I explained and answered questions aboutreligion, she about life there, living as a woman, security etc etc. TheSNs gave our chair later very good feedback about the session and some arenow thinking about going to an Arabic country (when I was in DecemberConference, I was really shocked, when all female SNs answered to the question:"Is there a place you wont take a traineeship"?, Everyone! answered with "I won't travel to an Islamic country"!)
Bottom line: Isn't it cool, that a project between the US and Egypt changes the views of SNs in Austria?
Cheers Ayman
Hi Jen,
Greetings from Austria, I hope everything is fine and that you enjoined your tripto Egypt.Just wanted to mention something very funny. I was at the Preparation Seminarfor our SNs 2 weeks ago and I talked there with one of the girls of theOC. She asked me about my name, if I have any Arabic roots and so on. FinallyI found out, that her name is Kasia (Salaam trainee 2003).
We talked a lot about Egypt, some of the AIESECers there and so on and it was so cool. Next day Ihad to make a session/country presentation about Egypt for the SNs and we(me and Kasia) talked about Egypt. I explained and answered questions aboutreligion, she about life there, living as a woman, security etc etc. TheSNs gave our chair later very good feedback about the session and some arenow thinking about going to an Arabic country (when I was in DecemberConference, I was really shocked, when all female SNs answered to the question:"Is there a place you wont take a traineeship"?, Everyone! answered with "I won't travel to an Islamic country"!)
Bottom line: Isn't it cool, that a project between the US and Egypt changes the views of SNs in Austria?
Cheers Ayman
posted by Jennifer at 4:44 PM
1 Comments:
This story is a GREAT example of what I like to call the "multiplier" effect.
I remember realizing the total potential of this effect when we had our first Salaam SN prep session here. The students hadn't even gone abroad yet and as they were talking about their conversations with their parents, with their friends to convince them that they would be safe in the Arab World, you could see people's mindsets changing.
Thanks so much Jen and Ayman for sharing this story.. and thanks Kaisa for continuing to change mindsets!!
7:07 PM
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home