Explore pro-active, positive solutions to Mideast tensions
10:00-11:00 Registration and Breakfast 11:00-11:15 Opening remarks 11:15-12:15 Seeds of Peace speakers (a Palestinian, an Israeli, and an American Jew)
Question and Answer exchange follows 12:30-2:00 Conflict Resolution Workshops
Three groups, led by:
Molly Wallace (Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution)
Gayle Myers (Search for Common Ground)
Larry Bell (National Coalition Building Institute) 2:15-3:00 Lunch together 3:00-4:15 Abraham Fund Speaker (Forsan Hussein, Palestinian-Israeli) 4:30-6:30 Living Room Dialogues (in two groups) 6:30-7:00 Progress reports from different campuses
Closing remarks and Evaluation 7:30-9:30 Middle Eastern "Falafel Fest" Dinner and Dance Party open to whole campus, including:
Dinner tables around a dance floor
Poet
Belly dancer
Iranian dance group
Dancing to music by Georgetown's newly-formed Arab-Jewish band
Conference is only $15 and includes:
Two meals * Speakers * Workshops * Concert!
Students from American, Georgetown, Wesleyan, Goucher, George Washington, James Madison,
Johns Hopkins, University of Pennsylvania, Tufts, and West Point are already subscribed. Space is limited * Reservation Deadline is Wednesday, Feb. 26
To sign up, contact: Rebecca Helmer -- RAH27@georgetown.edu -- (202) 784-7908 or (609) 685-4752
Background
Students for Middle East Peace is a new, non-partisan organization that works to bring together people of diverse backgrounds and political opinions to engage them in dialogue and to promote tolerance, education, and understanding. We have a Board of sixteen, including Arabs, Jews, and supportive others.
In order to further our goals, we have decided to host a symposium on March 2, 2003 for students from Georgetown and several other local colleges and universities.
The symposium will be the first of its kind. Students from different schools in the area will come together and will participate in conflict resolution workshops and dialogues. We will host several speakers to discuss peace projects involving the Middle East. and to initiate dialogue.
That night, we will have a fundraising concert to benefit the Abraham Fund -- named for the common ancestor of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. It works to create exchange programs between Jews and Arabs.
The concert will be a lot of fun, and tickets will be cheap!
We plan for it to be multi-cultural; we’ll have dancers, singers and musicians representing different regions of the Middle East, as well as a newly-formed Jewish-Arab band.
The goal of our symposium is to unite people of diverse backgrounds and to promote education and understanding in a fun and interesting way, and we hope that you will be a part of it.
This event is going to make a splash! We hope for widespread participation, to begin preventing our campuses from facing the same problems and polarization that other universities have faced. We hope to unite groups that might otherwise rarely interact.
We want to accomplish what we see as a noble goal in a very original way. Together, we really can make a difference.