I began soliya's programme yesterday. I have to admit that I was a little bit stressed before it began, but fortunately, Pierre was here to help me :). It was really cool and fun, despite some technical issues... We introduced ourselves with a little game. Even if people in my group seem to be shy, I began to discover some personnalities, and I was really surprised of what I found : Before the programme started, I thought that it would be really interesting for everyone, but not so useful, because I imagined people involved in this programme wouldn't be so different from each other. And, instead of that, I came across living examples of some of the stereotypes I had in mind. I don't speak for everyone, but for example, on a identity game : an american guy : « what best describe identity for me is nationality because I am proud to be american » and want to join the army a mulism girl : « what best describe identity for me is religion because I learn a lot from quran... » (I don't remember the end)
This is not to judge, but only to express my surprise... And they certainly have the same impression about me than I had about them, so... This make me change my opinion on this programme : maybe, it will be more useful than I thought at the beginning.
I 'd love to have everyone opinion on that, to see if I'm the only one in this case or not...
And to conclude, I'd like to say that I am really excited and happy to be part of this!
I agree with Laure on the diversity of people who are in Soliya's groups. In mine, it is really impressive.
We found a common point, though. One of the exercises we did was to find the 6 most important things which define us, which creates us, and select again 2 of them as the most important. Most of the time, among those 2 element were "family" or "curiousity - open minded". I think that this is a fact that need to be pundered over.
Another thing is really interesting : on one hand, as Laure wrote, there was also - even if rarely in the first two top positions - "national identity". On the other hand, at least half the group recognize itself as "citizen of the world".
This said, my group is composed of very different personnality. Some of them seems even so wise and profound that it makes you feel ignorant. But that's a great thing, given that it forces to go deeper into your reflexions.
Anyway, each of them seems to be a person with which it will be very interesting to talk and exchange ideas.
The first session was only a beginning, spiced with tech issues, which helped us to get to know each other. The next one will certainly be even more interesting.
The understanding of english is really not so hard. I feared that it would be somewhat more difficult than usually, because of the mics deformations, but that's really not an issue. That's rather my expression that fails me more .
In short, this first session confirmed all the promises of Soliya, and I'm very excited to be part of it. We'll see what the "real discussions" wil be next week.
My first Soliya meeting was yesterday, and I was a bit stressed about how the session would be: my english skills,my level of knowledge about the topic,...
Finaly, it was very cool. The first meeting was more a moment for our group to know each other and to introduce ourselves to the rest of the group. Even if a problem of connection delaied the meeting time of 30 minutes, the session was agreable, the facilitators very nice.
My first Soliya meeting was a complete mess. Most of the time I couldn't speek because the others couldn't hear me. After that there were the video problems.The image got frozen every 5 minutes. Also the sound made the conversation more difficult than it was:).
In a word I was really frustrated. Apparently most of the problems encountered were caused by several server crashes belonging to Soliya.
As for the subjects discussed during the meeting there was the identity exercise which I founded more difficult than it may seem. Trying to define my whole identity and personality in just a few words is not that easy. So I admit that I was tempted to use some stereotypes in order to have some answers. Unfortunately I couldn't get involved in the discussion generated by our answers so I just heard fragments about the role of media and family in modeling people's personalities. After that the server crashes came into and my meeting was totally damaged.
As you could see my first Soliya meeting wasn't at all what I have expected. I really hope that this will not repeat because it will just make loose interest in this program:).
I had my first Soliya session on last Thursday, the same time as Nicolas.
On one hand there were several technical issues : the session started 30 minutes later than usually, people wrote during about one hour and others did not succeed in getting a video connection. And more frustating : one girl was calling a friend while typing with us...
On the other hand people we met come from different countries : Egypt, Maine(United States), Italia and Syria ; and they were really nice with us. Most of people of the group seems open minded, and Eygptian girls gave us image of hard working people. We really had a great time, because everybody spoke freely about their feelings, fears or expectations about this program. The mood was very cool : we talked seriously while joking around.
To sum up, a great session, even if some technical problems blemished the painting...
We will probably have a more precise view next week!
This week, I had my first Soliya discussion. I was curious about getting to know the other members in my group. Where are they from, why do they participate in Soliya and will I understand them at all?
Well, at the end, everything was quite easier as I expected. After a few technical problems, I could finally join the discussion group – I was later penalised for my delay. Unfortunately, I missed out the introduction round, but it wasn’t hard to say who was coming from which country: Muslim headscarf vs. no Muslim headscarf.
We started with some little games: name a few character treats and say three sentences about you, one of them is a lie, the others had to guess which one is not true. A funny game, but it took a while until everyone was prepared and came up with their sentences or character treats. That was a little boring, but I’d never dare to say that. Unlike one of the Arabian girls. After 20 minutes of discussion she brought in that she is quite bored – whew! This was extremely disrespectful, mainly because it were her friends who needed most of the time.
During some parts of the discussion I had the impression to hear a little delay of two voices. First a male voice and then the voice of my female dialogue partner saying exactly the same as the male voice before. I didn’t pay much attention to this, for me as a computer scientist, it was just a current effect of signal transmitting. But after a while, I saw a teacher walking behind the girls from the UAEU. He seemed to have brisk interaction with the girls, he walked from one to the other. It seemed as if he was controlling them. But, why do they need teachers if we have facilitators? Was he really telling them what to say? And yes, the more they said, the more I got the impression that they were really influenced by him.
I started questioning.
As I study computer science, I’m used to be surrounded by boys. So I noticed later that our group consisted only of girls, except one facilitator. I asked him about, it seemed as if Soliya was forced to compose a girls-only group. This annoys me a lot because it’s completely opposed to the main ideas of Soliya. “Communicate to rehumanise”, but how could that be if they decline to communicate with one half of all humans, if they don’t respect all humans as their conversational partner, if they are themselves against the basic principles of humanity by generally refusing one half of humans? Maybe it’s even forbidden for them to talk to men, but if this is the case, they aren’t living in a human society and we can’t rehumanise a whole society.
6 comments:
Hello everyone!
I began soliya's programme yesterday. I have to admit that I was a little bit stressed before it began, but fortunately, Pierre was here to help me :).
It was really cool and fun, despite some technical issues... We introduced ourselves with a little game. Even if people in my group seem to be shy, I began to discover some personnalities, and I was really surprised of what I found :
Before the programme started, I thought that it would be really interesting for everyone, but not so useful, because I imagined people involved in this programme wouldn't be so different from each other. And, instead of that, I came across living examples of some of the stereotypes I had in mind. I don't speak for everyone, but for example, on a identity game :
an american guy : « what best describe identity for me is nationality because I am proud to be american » and want to join the army
a mulism girl : « what best describe identity for me is religion because I learn a lot from quran... » (I don't remember the end)
This is not to judge, but only to express my surprise... And they certainly have the same impression about me than I had about them, so... This make me change my opinion on this programme : maybe, it will be more useful than I thought at the beginning.
I 'd love to have everyone opinion on that, to see if I'm the only one in this case or not...
And to conclude, I'd like to say that I am really excited and happy to be part of this!
I agree with Laure on the diversity of people who are in Soliya's groups. In mine, it is really impressive.
We found a common point, though. One of the exercises we did was to find the 6 most important things which define us, which creates us, and select again 2 of them as the most important. Most of the time, among those 2 element were "family" or "curiousity - open minded". I think that this is a fact that need to be pundered over.
Another thing is really interesting : on one hand, as Laure wrote, there was also - even if rarely in the first two top positions - "national identity". On the other hand, at least half the group recognize itself as "citizen of the world".
This said, my group is composed of very different personnality. Some of them seems even so wise and profound that it makes you feel ignorant. But that's a great thing, given that it forces to go deeper into your reflexions.
Anyway, each of them seems to be a person with which it will be very interesting to talk and exchange ideas.
The first session was only a beginning, spiced with tech issues, which helped us to get to know each other. The next one will certainly be even more interesting.
The understanding of english is really not so hard. I feared that it would be somewhat more difficult than usually, because of the mics deformations, but that's really not an issue. That's rather my expression that fails me more .
In short, this first session confirmed all the promises of Soliya, and I'm very excited to be part of it. We'll see what the "real discussions" wil be next week.
Hi everyone,
My first Soliya meeting was yesterday, and I was a bit stressed about how the session would be: my english skills,my level of knowledge about the topic,...
Finaly, it was very cool. The first meeting was more a moment for our group to know each other and to introduce ourselves to the rest of the group. Even if a problem of connection delaied the meeting time of 30 minutes, the session was agreable, the facilitators very nice.
I am excited to participate to the next session !
Hello,
My first Soliya meeting was a complete mess. Most of the time I couldn't speek because the others couldn't hear me. After that there were the video problems.The image got frozen every 5 minutes. Also the sound made the conversation more difficult than it was:).
In a word I was really frustrated. Apparently most of the problems encountered were caused by several server crashes belonging to Soliya.
As for the subjects discussed during the meeting there was the identity exercise which I founded more difficult than it may seem. Trying to define my whole identity and personality in just a few words is not that easy. So I admit that I was tempted to use some stereotypes in order to have some answers. Unfortunately I couldn't get involved in the discussion generated by our answers so I just heard fragments about the role of media and family in modeling people's personalities. After that the server crashes came into and my meeting was totally damaged.
As you could see my first Soliya meeting wasn't at all what I have expected. I really hope that this will not repeat because it will just make loose interest in this program:).
Hi!
I had my first Soliya session on last Thursday, the same time as Nicolas.
On one hand there were several technical issues : the session started 30 minutes later than usually, people wrote during about one hour and others did not succeed in getting a video connection. And more frustating : one girl was calling a friend while typing with us...
On the other hand people we met come from different countries : Egypt, Maine(United States), Italia and Syria ; and they were really nice with us. Most of people of the group seems open minded, and Eygptian girls gave us image of hard working people. We really had a great time, because everybody spoke freely about their feelings, fears or expectations about this program. The mood was very cool : we talked seriously while joking around.
To sum up, a great session, even if some technical problems blemished the painting...
We will probably have a more precise view next week!
This week, I had my first Soliya discussion. I was curious about getting to know the other members in my group. Where are they from, why do they participate in Soliya and will I understand them at all?
Well, at the end, everything was quite easier as I expected. After a few technical problems, I could finally join the discussion group – I was later penalised for my delay. Unfortunately, I missed out the introduction round, but it wasn’t hard to say who was coming from which country: Muslim headscarf vs. no Muslim headscarf.
We started with some little games: name a few character treats and say three sentences about you, one of them is a lie, the others had to guess which one is not true. A funny game, but it took a while until everyone was prepared and came up with their sentences or character treats. That was a little boring, but I’d never dare to say that. Unlike one of the Arabian girls. After 20 minutes of discussion she brought in that she is quite bored – whew! This was extremely disrespectful, mainly because it were her friends who needed most of the time.
During some parts of the discussion I had the impression to hear a little delay of two voices. First a male voice and then the voice of my female dialogue partner saying exactly the same as the male voice before. I didn’t pay much attention to this, for me as a computer scientist, it was just a current effect of signal transmitting. But after a while, I saw a teacher walking behind the girls from the UAEU. He seemed to have brisk interaction with the girls, he walked from one to the other. It seemed as if he was controlling them. But, why do they need teachers if we have facilitators? Was he really telling them what to say? And yes, the more they said, the more I got the impression that they were really influenced by him.
I started questioning.
As I study computer science, I’m used to be surrounded by boys. So I noticed later that our group consisted only of girls, except one facilitator. I asked him about, it seemed as if Soliya was forced to compose a girls-only group. This annoys me a lot because it’s completely opposed to the main ideas of Soliya. “Communicate to rehumanise”, but how could that be if they decline to communicate with one half of all humans, if they don’t respect all humans as their conversational partner, if they are themselves against the basic principles of humanity by generally refusing one half of humans? Maybe it’s even forbidden for them to talk to men, but if this is the case, they aren’t living in a human society and we can’t rehumanise a whole society.
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