Intercultural Dialogue: An Experience

Intercultural Dialogue: An Experience Subrata Kumar Das

The UNESCO Club of Birshrestha Munshi Abdur Rouf Rifles College, Peelkhana, Dhaka organised a programme on July 5 to exhibit their experience of intercultural dialogue with a Russian school. Eminent litterateur Prof. Hayat Mahmud spoke on the occasion while Mia Md. Moniruzzaman, the Principal of the college was in the chair. T

How the Dialogue started: To meet the challenges of globalisation, developing intercultural dialogues has posed as a major issue of the day. With this view in mind UNESCO, in cooperation with DaimlerChrysler has initiated platforms to promote dialogues among different cultures and civilizations. Though the platform, called 'Mondialogo' initially involves educators and teachers in a competition worldwide, it eventually engages them in further dialogues in the forthcoming days. In November 2006, I got the opportunity to attend the Rome Symposium, held in Italy for being the leader of 'We Love Bangladesh' team from our college as one of the 50 finalists out of 2600 teams in Mondialogo School Contest 2005-2006 across the world. Elena Nikolaenko, the teacher of the Russian School was one like me in that symposium. Returning from there, we the Mondialogo teachers have started dialogues with whom s/he feels friendly. Consequently my dialogues have started with a Mexican and a Japanese school. But fortunately there developed a dialogue with this Russian school, though I did not have any worthwhile interaction with her during the Rome days.

Project production Project production

Project production

One day Elena wrote about her interest to engage a group of students in a dialogue with a Bangladeshi school. What a tremendous proposal!!! I did not hesitate a bit to reply positively.

What we did: We formed a group of about 24 students of 11 level, as the counterparts were of 16-17 years age group. But the problem was how to start the job! Many of the Russian students did not have email accounts, but what the conducting teacher had done was she made a list with the snail mail addresses of the team members. Accordingly I matched one with

Sezan, an enthusiastic participant of the project receives certificate from the Chief Guest

one that they could start knowing each other. Both the parties wrote letters, sent mails, and even sent gifts. They began to know about each other's country, culture, lifestyle etc. During the project we the two teachers decided that the Russian school will observe a day as 'Bangladesh Day' and our school will do the same as 'Russia Day'. To help observe these days, the teams made productions with ideas that represent the countries.

Ending ceremonies: On 26 May 2007 the Russian school 'Result' (Volzhsky, Volgograd region, 404121, Russia) observed 'Bangladesh Day' in their school and showed the parents and guardians what the Bangladeshi students had sent. The list included miniatures of Shaheed Minar and National Memorium made of cotton and sola, artworks of village life, our national poet, the birshresthas etc. A student made a map of Bangladesh with small beads. The Bangladesh part finished the project with a small programme 'Intercultural Dialogue with Russia'. The programme started with the welcome speech by the present contributor, the UNESCO club coordinator. Eminent writer Prof Hayat Mahmud praised the initiative for making dialogues among nations. In his speech he recalled his Russia days. Sizan Ud Darain, Rafiqul Islam and Himel Saha narrated their experiences during the dialogue. Aysha Binte Saddique read out the excerpts from Rabindranath Tagore's Russiar Chithi or 'Letters from Russia'. Principal Mia Md Moniruzzaman and Monjurul Karim emphasized on the positive areas that such a dialogue can bring forth. Prof Hayat Mahmud gave away the certificates sent by the Russian school among the Bangladeshi students. Nandini Roy Chowdhury, a student of class 12 conducted the whole programme.

Prof. Hayat Mamud speaks

Participants: The students who took part in the Russian side were: Alla, Olga (2), Ksenia, Nastya (3), Yulia, Nikita, Aljona, Svetlana, Ivan, Kate, Elina, Dasha, Misha, Kirill (2), Lousa, Roman, Vladislav, Maria and Nikolay. The counterparts of Bangladesh side were Sizan Ud Darain, Nandini Roy Chowdhury, Shafa Khandaker Asif Iftekhar, Rafiqul Islam, Saif Salah Uddin, Raihan Ahmed, Shazede Hossain, Himel Saha, Aysha Binte Siddique, Shakhawat Hossain, Faisal Ahmed, Rony Ahmed, Khondaker Mohammad Rizwan, Shomorita Sharmin and Juel Rana. Gratefulness: Dmitry Chistyakov, General Director and Konstantin Timchenkov, the Creative Director of the Russian school 'Result' took necessary initiative to send certificates. UNESCO club advisers Abu Darda and Nurul Islam helped to organise the ending session. All the UNESCO club students deserve appreciation for their enthusiasm and sincerity. Published in The Daily Star on 22 July 2007