TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Tali Padan
Salaam-Shalom Interfaith Learning is a project meant to bring together people of different faiths, with special focus on the Jewish-Muslim relations in Europe. Violence and wars around the world can create a segregation between these two communities, and media can help spread this fear by reporting on the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Europe. Rather than treat these two forms of discrimination separately, Salaam-Shalom aims to look at their similar roots and hold debates and discussions about this commonality. Experts from NGOs across Europe, including countries most affected by the tension of these interfaith relations (France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark) can share their practices in the youth work they have been doing to integrate people of different backgrounds and create a space where everyone belongs. The meeting of the youth and youth workers will include include a space for self-expression through slam poetry, as well as a film night with a discussion and a debate. There was also a film and website created to document existing projects and inspire new ones.
The objectives of the project can be summarised as follows:
1. To discuss similar roots of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and hold debates and discussion about this commonality.
2. To bring people who work in inter-faith work together in Copenhagen, share best practices and provide an alternative model to what the media presents as continuous conflict and war.
3. To make a film and a website showing the work above and disseminate it across Europe.
This project took place with participants from Germany, France, UK, Sweden and Denmark. Participants came from youth work that involved inter-faith or intercultural work, especially focusing on the Jewish-Muslim relations but also included relations between other religious and cultural groups.
In this seminar, a method called BarCamp was used, which allowed for each participant to provide a workshop of their choice on topics dealing with Salaam Shalom. This was a way to share best practice but also include all the voices in the seminar, so as to make the experience as relevant as possible. The workshops ranged from discussions on gender equality and religion, personal stories about coming from an extremist past, a conversation about the relevance of this work to the conflict in Israel/Palestine, and also a "lighter" sharing of culture by teaching Jewish Friday night prayers and songs, as well as Arabic dances. This was a way that participants could learn from each other and dissolve the boundaries of identity (Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, etc.) that are so often set in stone and form a division. This also made for an alternative model to what we hear in the media about communities being afraid of each other or criticising each other. This meeting deepened the understanding of each identity group and therefore united people as human beings.
In the end, the films made included:
* A documentation and inspirational video on the Salaam Shalom inter-faith Passover dinner.
* A documentation and personal look into the Salaam Shalom seminar in June, 2016.
* Interviews with various people across Jewish and Muslim communities to be used as an educational tool.
The website can be found here: http://www.salaamshalom.dk/
The educational part with the video interviews here:
http://www.salaamshalom.dk/educational-tools/
Both the films documenting the events in Copenhagen (inter-faith Passover dinner and Salaam Shalom seminar) can be found on the homepage of the website: http://www.salaamshalom.dk/
I organised the training, designed and planned the methodologies to be used, and was a trainer for this week.