Freedom to Be Ourselves: The Journey to Promote Discourses on Religious Freedom
In 2018, I took a graduate course taught by Dr. Karen Ross to become an intercultural dialogue facilitator and received Soliya’s advanced facilitation training endorsed by UN-Habitat.
Soliya is a non-profit organization based in New York dedicated to providing youth with an online virtual exchange program. UMass Boston’s John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies is a university partner of Soliya. Through its virtual exchange program, Soliya’s experienced dialogue facilitators help young adults (many of whom are undergraduate students from across the globe) constructively engage with differences and promote mutual understanding and empathy. Since then, I have served as a facilitator of the online program, facilitating dialogue between students from Western and predominantly Muslim countries.
Soliya announced a First Year Connect Program Coordinator position designed to foster a deeper understanding of the diverse student perspectives on important issues, develop empathy, critical thinking and awareness, and create a peaceful campus environment for all. As a scholar-practitioner, my aim is to contribute to the creation of an inclusive society where people of different faiths, races, and beliefs can all live together in peace. Soliya’s mission resonated with my passion and research agenda so I immediately applied for the position.