The activity was implemented in the University of Brasília (UnB), Brazil, as a part of the ACWAY’s Facebook Diversity Campaign (FDC). Being composed by ten
undergradutes of different fields of study – International Affairs, Law, Economics, Chemical Engineering and Political Science – and of different regions of the country, the aim of the acitvity was to put students with diverse backgrounds to discuss the importance of interculturality nowadays and the challenges to its promotion in Brazil and in the world.
First, each participant received a plackard with the ACWAY logo. They were oriented to write their names in it and to raise it as a way of manifesting their willingness to talk in the discussion.
The activity was divided in three parts, where the first two were composed by discussions. In part one, called “TOPIC #1: INTERCULTURALITY IN THE WORLD”, the
participants faced two topics to discuss: What’s the role of interculturality and interfaith in our world nowadays? and How can we promote understanding among different cultures and religions in difficult contexts?. In the discussion, the participants talked about issues such as multiculturalism, sectarism in international relations, islamophobia in western countries and adressed diverse situations where certain principles of the international community should not be enforced without taking into account the respect to different cultures and religions.
Part two, called “TOPIC #2: INTERCULTURALITY IN BRAZIL”, introduced the brazilian scenario in the discussion, focusing in the multicultural context of the country and its challenges concerning interfaith harmony. In this topic, the participants talked about the diferences of the regions of Brazil, mostly from
where some of them came. They addressed diverse ways of exercising interfaith harmony in the daily life.
Last, bearing in mind that the idea of A Common Word Among the Youth (ACWAY) is to deliver activities and projects that promote interculturality and interfaith harmony, the third part brought a challenge to be accomplished by the participants. Entitled “PART #3: PROJECT ELABORATION”, the
participants were divided in two groups and had to idealize projects to promote interculturality. Two different themes were raffled between the groups (they could pick health, gender equality, education and refugees) and each one had to elaborate a project to promote interculturality in the field they got.
At the end, each group presented the project elaborated and explained how it would contribute to enhance harmony between different cultures and religions.
Group #1 got the theme of education. The group elaborated a project where music could be used as a way of empowering different cultures inside school, promoting diversity and the understanding of the otherness while kids have fun.
Group #2 got the theme of refugees, elaborating a project where the diferences of the refugees could be understood and promoted in the media. In their idea, these diferences could be shared in refugee camps and used to make different policies inside it in order to make their lives easier in this situation.