Ibrahim Leadership and Dialogue Middle East Program
To kick start this year's Speaker Series, IAS students Yano Windmiller and Ahmet Yucesoy shared their summer experience in the Ibrahim and Queens College Student Leadership Program in the Middle East. The program allowed 15 US students from Muslim, Christian, and Jewish backgrounds to develop their shared academic interests in the region while accomplishing the organization's mission of promoting religious understanding, social entrepreneurship, and conflict transformation. Yano and Ahmet gave a whirlwind summary of the difficult debates they had and the amazing sights they saw during their time in Oman, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Perhaps the most important part of the trip which they shared was the lesson they learned of the necessity (and difficulty) of looking past competing ideologies and religions, in order to find hope within such a conflict-ridden world. Both students encouraged anyone interested in the Ibrahim Leadership and Dialogue Middle East Program to reach out to them as they hope Wash U students can continue to provide representation in the program.
Link to program: http://www.ildme.org/
