Oasis of Peace Memo

To: 1311 Students                                                                                                                          

 From: Sarah Alhatib                                                                                                                                                                    Date: February 14, 2011                                                                                                                                                          Subject: The Oasis of Peace                                                                                                                                                       Overview                                                                                                                                 

Oasis of Peace, Neve Shalom or Wahat al-Salam, is an organization that brings together the Palestinian Arab and Jewish that live in Israel.  These two groups will engage in work that will allow them to understand the opposite group and work together to establish peace.  There is a “School of Peace” that was established in 1979 in the middle of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The school really teaches students how to coexist and how to compromise even though they come with totally different views about many issues they have in common.  There are other organizations such as the “Creativity for Peace,” which also helps the coexistence of Palestinians and Jews.                                                            

 Communication                                                                                                                                                                    It communicates with the community by having an up and running website. The website gives updated information on what activities and programs are going on now.  On the website, itself, there are videos of what kinds of topics that are talked about when all the girls join together.  There is room to blog or write comments on the website on any question, concern or comment you might have! The website is very nicely formatted that you could reach all the information that you wish to know in a few short clicks. It is very simplified for the convenience of the audience. This organization also allows many people to come visit them in person. On the website, it tells you all about the wonderful activities and programs that they offer visitors.  They even have a hotel that the visitors can stay in for easy access to all events around them.  Another way they spread the word is by the school that they established. “School of Peace” brings Palestinians and Jews together at an early age to learn and accept the other religion.  I believe the more they inform these kids of what’s going in their countries early on, it will give these kids a chance to grow up and change how things are in their country.  We hope that we can make these kids the future leaders of the country.                                                                                                                      

Solves a Problem                                                                                                                                                                        The problem that this organization solves is violence and hate between two groups of people who are similar in so many ways. It gives them the opportunity to express how they feel in an appropriate way that can lead to discussion about the issue. They are so accustomed to hating the other side, but when they get together they see that there are so many ways that the issue their countries have been fighting for years about can be resolved. They see the good in the other group and we hope that more and more people like them come together and solve problems in a civil manner rather than fighting about it.  I believe if these kids follow through and stay strong together they could grow up and solve this ongoing problem.  Just from the videos and what the girls say afterwards, they seem like they have a really strong feeling about being able to make a difference. 

Building Peace

I think educating women is just as important as educating men. I believe if we had more people like Greg Mortinson, many of our underdeveloped countries would be on the right road to educating their women and kids. These kids aren’t getting the chance to reach their full potential as individuals. It’s sort of unfair to the kids because they don’t have the resources to be all they can be.  If we pushed them in the right direction, I’m sure their living environment as a whole would be different.  I don’t think being girl or boy matters.  Honestly girls have the same potential as men, so putting men first in education is unfair. I believe they do this just because its sort of become tradition in these countries to put men before women.  This is something I just don’t agree with and definitely would be a reason why I, personally, would choose to help these underdeveloped countries.

Another issue I have besides education is the health issue.  I think its so sad that kids under the age of five are actually dying because they don’t have clean water to drink.  Living in such a powerful country, you really take just having clean water for granted. Personally, I don’t really take having clean water as something big or something to be thankful for. After watching this film segment, you really start to think about your life and how you are living it compared to the less fortunate.  For example, going to school could be the hardest thing we have to do.  We complain so much about getting up early and going to our big nice schools. However, in the other countries people look forward to education and really want it to do good in life. 

Peace

When the word peace pops into my head, I think of all people coming together and making the world a better place. Peace symbolizes harmony and togetherness with the world.  I don’t think our world is a peace right now. There are many problems that need to be fixed to be at the point were our world is at peace. I believe if we ever did achieve peace within the world, that would be a miracle.  I think we dug ourselves too big of a hole for that to happen though . Another kind of peace that I think of is self peace.  Its just knowing that you are satisfied with yourself and how you are now. You have just come to peace about everything in your life and are very satisified with yourself.  I have peace with myself a lot but at times of stress and such sometimes it gets to me too much and I get confused with what I’m trying to do.  One thing that many people want is peace. It just put everyone at ease and really nothing to worry about. Sometimes peace can come just within a family.  Knowing everyone in your family is on the right path in their life just sets the peace mode. I don’t know many people that don’t long for world peace or peace with themselves in general.  It’s a really strong word that means symbolizes a lot when you think deep into it.  I think to achieve any kind of peace you need to know what you want. You really just need to know what you want your ending to be and have nothing get in your way.  At the end when you achieve it you will be satisfied and at peace with yourself. 

Fair Use and Copyright

Fair Use and Copyright

The web content found on http://sarah-makingpeace.blogspot.com/ was created by Sarah Alkhatib for noncommercial, educational purposes only.  Any opinions expressed therein are those of the author alone. Some of these web pages may also include examples of controversial statements, quotes, graphics or links posted for the sole purpose of stimulating academic debate, but which may not actually correspond to the author’s own personal opinions or beliefs, the UTEP First-Year Composition Program, the UTEP Department of English, UTEP Undergraduate Studies or UTEP itself.

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