Seminar: Salaam Shalom

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Dates: 1-4 June 2016

Number of participants: 40

Salaam Shalom

The Salaam Shalom Seminar will explore topics in inter-faith and intercultural work, including identifying the challenges, breaking through borders, and discussing advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to this work.

In December 2015, Mellem Education, the organising body for this project, held a planning meeting to gather the perspectives and experience of people working on Salaam Shalom type projects in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and France. These perspectives were as varied as the people attending. Some insisted that Salaam Shalom projects must be political in nature, and include a form of resistance towards oppression. Some saw it more as a cultural gathering through which people can learn about each other more informally. Others favoured integrating this work into a local and ‘majority’ community, and some saw the target group of youth being the most relevant. These needs were at times conflicting and other times collaborative.

Inspired by all these different perspectives, Copenhagen will host a Salaam Shalom Seminar from June 1-4, 2016. This seminar will allow these different perspectives to be expressed, using the BarCamp methodology. The BarCamp methodology allows every participant to contribute actively to the content of the seminar by being able to offer a 45-minute workshop. These workshops shape the content of the seminar, and participants can choose which workshops to attend according to their interests. In this way, all participants are learners and all participants are teachers.

The different themes within this Seminar will include:
* Identifying the Challenges: Why is Salaam Shalom needed?
* Dissolving the Borders: How can Salaam Shalom can be implemented?
* Meta Level: How are the different approaches to Salaam Shalom helpful or harmful?

Participants are welcomed to offer sessions in any format they would like (personal stories, lectures, interactive workshops, discussions, performances, etc.). Participants will include those involved in inter-faith or intercultural work, as well as members of any religious or non-religious community, and youth workers within this field.

Participants from Denmark, Sweden, France and Germany are welcomed to apply. Travel will be reimbursed up to a certain amount, depending on the city/country. Accommodation will be covered by the project and will take place in a central hostel in Copenhagen.

Organizers

Mellem Education is an organisation that provides educational experiences in the form of trainings and workshops, meant to challenge the individual on their role in a group decision-making process. From Human Rights trainings in schools to communication and professional development trainings at workplaces, Mellem Education’s goal is for each person to recognize and experience every individual’s equal right to freedom. By reflecting on our responsibility in this process, we continuously challenge the system in which we function and work towards building a better society from the bottom up.

Mellem offers a variety of strategies including the Betzavta methodology, which uses the dynamics of the group to shape the content of the workshop. Topics covered include democratic decision-making, minorities/majorities, conflict over limited resources, intercultural communication. Activities are engaging and interactive with a reflection session following each activity to reflect and learn from each other’s behavior. Topics within immigration and integration are seen both on a political level and a personal level, allowing the two to be linked in order to best learn from our environment and be able to make a difference in this field.