International seminar 

The compatibility of the Islamic Religion with Human Rights. 29th of March - 4th of April 2005, Iasi, Romania

The idea of our project was generated by the need of and, and by our, in the context of. We thought that culture and religion are nowadays a source of conflicts, instead of bringing people together. Thus, our seminar tried to offer a pertinent approach concerning the Islamic religion, facilitating intercultural communication and living diversity among European youth.

At European level, our event was part of the AEGEE-Europe Euro Islam project, and after some rounds of negotiations was also officially recognized by The Council of Europe (COE). At the local level, our main partners were the Prefecture of Iasi, The European Center of Resources and Consultancy, and the Students Cultural House.

The seminar combined the "classic" transfer of theoretical knowledge to the direct target group (mostly in the morning sessions) with non-formal education within workshops focusing on examples of good practice of tolerance and communication in modern societies and intercultural communication among different religious groups.

In order to support the seminar structure, we enjoyed the support of five specialists, coming from various fields: Cosmin Corendea, SALTO trainer at the Youth Centre in Strasbourg, Dean Hufstetler, Lecturer at the University of California at Irvine and Visiting Profesor at "Al. I. Cuza" University Iasi, Iulian Gherghevici, integration counsellor in the Romanian Ministry of European Integration, Octaviana Marincas, Lecturer at the Faculty of Arts from Iasi and Florin Dorian Dascalescu, Lawyer, President of AEGEE-Iasi.

Respecting the true AEGEE spirit, we didnt neglect the social program, so our participants enjoyed various actions, like: sightseeing, visits to the local governmental institutions, European night, traditional Romanian dances, wine tasting, pub crawling.

The big success of our project was represented however by the afternoon workshops, ran by Cosmin Corendea (the workshops using non-formal education methods being the most appreciated part of the seminar).

The most interesting subjects during the seminar were considered to be:

• the fight against Islamophobia;

• the discussions on banning the Islamic veil;

• Sharia;

• Euthanasia;

• the workshop on impersonating different characters in order to understand discrimination and social exclusion.

The important mass-media impact of our seminar was reflected in two TV interviews (one of them on national television) and two newspaper articles, following an opening press-conference of the event and the launching of our official web site.Even if we knew from the beginning that organization of this seminar was  a tough job, our motto always expressed our belief that we must shot on the moon in order to land down some stars, which we actually did.

Florin Dorian Dascalescu

Of behalf on AEGEE-Iasi organizing team

More info:

Webpage of the Iasi-Seminar

Info about AEGEE Iasi

 Download the description of the seminar

Description_of_Iasi_seminar.pdf

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