Meeting our Neighbours

Meeting Our Neighbours An Outreach to Bangladesh 20-30 September, 2018

The outreach to Bangladesh brought home to us the strength of all connections, and that one never really knows when a seed will sprout, and how it might grow, but the importance of nurturing and giving care to it anyway.

Genesis of the Outreach The seed for the outreach to Bangladesh was planted when a Nepali Caux scholar of 2016, sent info about the APYC of December 2017 in Panchgani to his Nepali friends studying at the Asian University for Women (AUW), in Chittagong, Bangladesh. As a result, seven women from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, & Nepal attended the APYC. One of these women introduced some students of Chittagong University (CU) to Sunny, and following on from that, three students of CU’s Law department joined the Siloam Dialogue on Celebrating Differences, Melting Divisions held in Meghalaya in June, 2018. Sunny kept in regular touch with these students, who showed a keenness for an IofC team to visit Bangladesh.

So we formed a team of what was to be four, but due to ill health in the family of Neha Mukherjee, became a team of three, Sunny Mawiong, Aparna Khatri and Siddharth Singh. It was to be just a few interactions - It became so much more.

Additional interesting connections made the time more rewarding – meeting Adnan Fakir, who has been for Just Governance at AP twice and now teaches at BRAC university in Dhaka; meeting with Anik Asad & Mozahidul Islam from an International NGO HEKS EPER, who had met Siddharth and others at Just Governance for Human Security, 2018 in Caux; and meeting Professor Salim Rashid, who teaches at the East West University in Dhaka, and whom Rajmohan & Usha Gandhi have got to know in his stints at the University of Illinois.

1

The outreach team with our hosts from AUW, who had participated in the 23rd APYC in India.

Chittagong Starting in Chittagong, we had interactions with students of AUW and CU over several days, on the core ideas of IofC, Relationships, Purpose in Life, and so on.

Deep thoughts were shared by participants from AUW, which left us touched and inspired. We also interacted over coffee with a few students from Gilgit, Pakistan. They talked about intense difficulties with visas in general because of their Pakistani passports, and about feeling the impossibility of ever being able to visit India. One of the girls expressed, “We can't meet in our countries but at least we can meet here�.

For us, this was a slightly surreal and beautifully special experience - the 12 of us from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Fiji, with several points of shared culture, sitting around a table having coffee together, and talking about the hope that one day we will visit each other in each other's countries.

With participants at the Asian University for Women

2

At the campus fo Chittagong University with students of the Faculty of Law

It was heartening to hear experiences of the CU students after their return from the Siloam Dialogue. One woman had promised at the Siloam Dialogue to tell her mother that she had lied about her travel to Siloam – she told her mother the truth upon her return, and although her mother was angry initially, later accepted it.

One man had decided to admit his fault in the breakdown of an old friendship with his friend. He said that though at first his friend was angry, he later admitted his own fault in the fight, and they’re now reconciled, after many months of no communication.

Not only were their own experiences inspiring, but it was touching to hear from fellow-students about the differences in behaviour they saw in them after their return – one student cleaned the entire class by himself after the end of the class, without telling anyone about it – his classmates only found out later; one woman said of her senior that earlier the senior would not communicate with any of the juniors and just ignored them, but after returning from Siloam, she was friendly with them, and interested in talking and hearing from them.

Dhaka In Dhaka, we had an informal discussion with Prof. Rashid, and some of his students.

They are interested in being involved in future interactions/conferences in Bangladesh. Prof. Rashid hopes to join us at Asia Plateau for the International Conference in January next year.

We interacted with the staff at HEKS EPER, who are working for the betterment of the Dalits and Adivasis of

With Prof. Salim Rashid and his students from the East West University, Dhaka 3

Bangladesh. They are very keen to be part of IofC events. They also talked about a method they use call dia-praxis, which includes dialogue & practice, and said IofC ideas could be built into this method in their fieldwork.

With the HEKS EPER team at their office in Dhaka

On our last evening in Dhaka we had a brief meeting with Adnan Fakir who has very fond memories of his time at Asia Plateau.

Some outcomes and future possibilities

There were five from Bangladesh who took part in the Nepal Dialogue from 5-8 October in Dhulikhel – three Law students from Chittagong University, and two gentlemen from HEKS-EPER. They would like to have an IofC conference in Bangladesh in early to mid-2019, and HEKS EPER are interested in targeted training of their staff.

The Centre for Career Development & International Programmes (CDIP) of AUW are interested in looking at the 7-week IofC ‘Initiating Change’ programme at Asia Plateau, and requested a special batch for them in the months of May-June, when their students have a break from classes. Another programme which sparked their interest is the Creators of Peace Circles for the women there.

The students of Chittagong University’s Law Faculty are interested in helping organise and participating in any conference that is planned in Bangladesh.

The time in Bangladesh was rich, and has opened up possibilities to build connections in the country, and hopefully also work towards building bridges between countries of this region. The potential and opportunities are tremendous, as you can imagine. They call for an equal response.

4