In a preview post, I published a video of Shereen El Feki speaking in a TED conference, video that I translated into French a couple of months ago. In this conference, Shereen was talking about the Ninety Nine, a group of superheroes inspired by islamic values.
Now, it is Dr Naif Al-Mutawa himself who is the invited speaker of a new TED talk about his own creation.
Posted in Cultural diversity, East/West, pedagogy
Tagged East/West, culture, Cultural diversity, diversity, Arabic, communication, America, religion, English, Islam, Muslim, Cross culture, crosscultural, The 99, 99, The Ninety Nine, Noor, New York, Kuwait, Comics, Comic book, Comic books, Obama, President, West, East, Value, God, Allah, Arthur, Attribute, Attributes, quran, the god, Shereen el Feki, TED.com, TED, intercultural, interculture
it’s time for us to reveal
The Safety Net Project is a program associated between Lingua Lingua Franca Foundation and Hotel Abadi Sdn Bhd (Hotel Abadi Melaka) to promote safe and harmonious ‘win-win’ international exchanges as well as diversity between nations. This project aims to deal with domestic violence against women from abroad and to help them to integrate in the welcoming country or to go back safely to their country of origin and to inform local authority, potential partners and contributors of the current situation and what plans for improvement. It is also a discussion platform for future collaboration from both sides to promote and maintain the durability of the project.
“ Somebody you know may need these information badly. The speakers are people with first hand experience on the subject, and have worked with people with similar predicaments. The lesson from their experience is that some problems can be prevented, and it is best if you are prepared before making that big decision! Read the brochure to find out more! “
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Posted in Cultural diversity, East/West, Project Safety Net, Projects, Training, Working in Europe, communication, women
Tagged abroad, august, children, communication, couple, Cultural diversity, culture, domestic violence, Dutch, East/West, Europe, family, foundation, immigration, information, Lifestyle, Malaysia, man/woman, marriage, migration, mixed couple, project, relationship, safety, Safety Net, seminar, Social, the netherlands, woman, work
To enable you to be from where you are to where you want to be, you have move. Yes! Move. Move from one side to another, and one place to another. Just, literally…move.
Making contact is like building a bridge. It connects you from one end to the other. Once you cross the bridge, there is no turning back. Along the way, you will encounter little stops that either help you build a bigger picture of what you want to construct or just simply destroy what you hope to build. It’s as simple as that. If your journey helps you to build and contruct, then once you implement all the information, you are able to lay down some structure later. These structures will help you re-build your global-view plans so that you can narrow them down to more concrete measures and whence, you manage to see what you can and cannot accomplish.
Using this concept, I decided to extend the Foundation’s bridge to another continent; initiating new projects so that the Foundation can continue to pursue and develop its goals. Knowing I will find new territories, I packed my bags; along with the toys donated by the kids4kids club for the needy children, off I went to the country with the oldest rain forest in the world. The moment I touched down at the international airport, I realised that this country has a lot of potential. Upholding their slogan, Truly Asia; Malaysia is not only enriched with multinationals and culture, but also considered as one of the well-developed countries in the Asian continent.
During my stay in Kuala Lumpur, I have engaged with several types of crowd; from business to politics, and journalists to hotel management. Between us, I could see that we have one thing in common: to make contact and to expand our bridges. We share the same vision: to expand our horizons and to globalize our mission. We want to reach out beyond our borders and we want (and hope) to do it together.
One of the main cores of the Foundation is education. The Foundation wishes to establish an international learning network to connect and get the best out of both worlds. The Foundation strongly believes that education plays an enormous role in stripping the veil of ignorance and naivety, thus assist our evolving mind to be more responsible and productive. Connecting two worlds by creating a bridge and a platform would be a big project for the Foundation – such project can only be achievable through constant networking and getting international partners for full-time involvement.
Another project is to introduce one of our activities to the Asian audience – The Safety Net Project. This special project has been under experimental in the Netherlands since the middle of 2009 and we are hoping to launch it officially somewhere in Kuala Lumpur. The Foundation hopes that the meeting with a few relevant and motivated people will be fruitful and the project will be introduced to the public in the up coming months. The project is targeted mostly for women audience and how to exercise prevention and educating women their rights, responsibilities and capacity. The Foundation is promoting safe international exchanges between the West and East; and by trying to connect both worlds, women from all over are able to participate in a programme to learn to grow out of naivety and being motivated at the same time. 
Besides trying to make proper introduction about the Foundation’s activities, I have taken the opportunity to launch our first international exchange project. Kids4kids club (a club formed by the Foundation) has been active in collecting toys for the needy children since January 2010 and my journey to Malaysia has enable me to deliver the hard work the children have poured into to make this charity project a success. I have brought more than 20 kilos worth of toys to be distributed to several needy children from everywhere in West Malaysia.
Doing charity work is part of the Foundation’s establishment. I wish that this charity project will always exist and continue throughout the existance of Lingua Franca Foundation.
Posted in Cultural diversity, East/West, Kids 4 Kids, Project Safety Net, communication
Tagged foundation, project, Safety Net, woman, abroad, East/West, Europe, work, Malaysia, children, move, fly, learning, Cultural diversity, communication, business, information, education, donation, charity, bridge, charity work
heart in chains
Elisa*, 37, snuggles contentedly against Giovanni*, her husband of two months, and declares, “I SO love this man… NOW I understand what love is all about.” Looking up coyly at her husband, she admits to spritzing on perfume and dolling herself up just before he arrives home. “I’m smitten.” She manages to look sheepish while grinning from ear to ear. Giovanni laughs heartily, evidently pleased with her confession. Squeezing Elisa gently, Giovanni, or Khalid* as he is also known, gives her an affectionate peck before leaving us to this interview. Knowing that we would be delving into a painful period in her life, Elisa braces herself for the inevitable.
“It all began when I was studying in the UK. I met Pieter* through a pen pal programme organised by a student’s association. He was studying in the Netherlands, working on his doctorate. We actually wrote to each other the old fashioned way – using pen, paper and stamps.” Elisa always thought of him as a friend, but Pieter’s writing became increasingly personal. Friends pointed out that Pieter was definitely interested but Elisa played it cool.
Coming from a troubled family, Elisa did not witness much affection between her own parents. After they divorced, Elisa stayed with her mother but she understood her father better. Her mother opposed her relationship with Pieter but Elisa didn’t care. She had no interest in the rich boys her mother kept throwing her way.
Elisa and Pieter finally met in person when a friend dragged her along on a trip to Amsterdam. Pieter put them up in his apartment and accompanied them sightseeing. The very next day, he took Elisa to meet his parents. After that, they visited each other occasionally and kept in touch via telephone. Soon, both of them graduated and started working. Two years later, he asked her to marry him and she accepted.
“The truth is, I never really loved him. But he was there and it was the logical next step, so I said yes. Three days before the wedding, I left town. Somewhere deep inside, I didn’t want to marry him. But when I came back, he begged, and I relented. I think my father saw Pieter’s true nature. After the wedding, he specifically asked Pieter to take care of me.” His promise was just words, however.
Posted in Cultural diversity, East/West, Project Safety Net, Projects, women
Tagged abroad, alert, awareness, Broken relationship, couple, domestic violence, Dutch, East/West, emotional abuse, emotional angst, Europe, family, frustration, immigration, inform, information, Lifestyle, love, man/woman, marriage, mixed couple, physical abuse, protect, protection, relationship, repressed, safety, Safety Net, trap, woman
Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations showed the war between civilization as unavoidable, something engraved in the core of geopolitics since the beginning of times… A lucid examination of history shows something rather different : cultures and civilizations always exchange, giving to and borrowing from each other, excluding some elements and integrating some others according to the proper dynamics of their own evolutions. The Arabic and Muslim world is no exception to this rule and is re-interpreting elements from modernity according to local needs and conditions, “to produce novelties which are neither conventionally Western nor traditionally Arab“.
Shereen El Feki, half Egyptian, half Welsh, is observing these side effects of globalization. “Her passion lies in the many projects in which she is involved which aim to better understand, and surmount, the social challenges facing Arabs, particularly young people”.
In this video, published by Ted India, she is showing some examples of these borrowings.
Posted in Cultural diversity, East/West, Languages
Tagged abroad, Arab, Arabic, communication, Cultural diversity, culture, diversity, East/West, history, language, Languages
minaret
The entire world was abashed when the results of a poll against the construction of new minarets in Switzerland have been published.
The extreme right party – Swiss People’s Party (SVP) – launched such a gross campaign against the minarets, using posters showing a woman with a burqa facing a Swiss flag covered with missile-shaped minarets, that everybody expected a defeat of the populist party.
But inf fact a majority of 57.7 % voted for the ban of minarets construction in Switzerland.
The Swiss People Party clearly exploited the irrational fear of “extensive islamisation” of the country and wanted to stop the Muslim tsunami…
But what tsunami ? There are 400.000 Muslims in Switzerland, out of a total population of 7.739.000 inhabitants. Most of them work and are perfectly integrated in Swiss social life. There are about 400 mosques in Switzerland and… 4 minarets!
Posted in Cultural diversity, East/West
Tagged belief, Cultural diversity, culture, democracy, domestic violence, East/West, extreme right, faith, family, freedom, immigration, migration, minaret, party, politics, populism, religion, religious freedom, Switzerland, UN, United Nations
His name is Pranav Mistry and he is the perfect model of new stunningly brilliant Asian students who are busy reshaping our future. He is currently studying in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab. Before joining MIT he worked as a UX Researcher with Microsoft. He received his Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay.
But, above all, he is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the digital world.
And now, he is developing an unbelievable number of new projects like a programming language for children or sticky notes that are understood by your computer… You can find all this on his website : www.pranavmistry.com
In this jaw-dropping video, he tells us how we use objects in the real world and how we can create bridges between the real world and objects and/or data from the numeric realms. And how he was led to create his strange but true invention…
Posted in East/West
Tagged America, Asia, China, developing countries, East/West, future, India, innovation, learning, new technology, Pranav Mistry, Science, South Korea, Student, technology, University
Devdutt Pattanaik is a self-taught mythologist. He is currently Chief Belief Officer at Future Group in Mumbai.
In this video of a TED India Conference 2009, he is explaining how myths can shape our vision of THE World and My World and how we can understand each other. Through the story of Alexander the Great and a gymnosophist, 326 years before Christ, he analyzes how their beliefs about life and death shaped their thoughts and feelings. This is a great intercultural lesson with loads of humor…
But ancient myths can also provide resources to understand our modern world and the cultural conflicts that prevent business people around the world to work together…
Find more on Devdutt Pattanaik’s home page.
Posted in Cultural diversity, East/West, communication
Tagged East/West, Europe, Cultural diversity, diversity, mythology, business, India, America, Devdutt Pattanaik, storytelling
