Me and the Other
Not accepting people who are different has been always there, and with the rapid changes in the world, societies are becoming more diversified, and children and teenagers are living with peers from different cultures, faiths, and nationalities. Therefore, unless they have the right perspective to deal with others who are different, it is more likely to have bullying as one of the challenges. Children and teenagers are now more in need for the culture of respecting those who are different.
Goals:
- Building a culture in which children and teenagers sublime in dealing with others who are different from them, in language, belief, country, color, or any other differences, to reach a stage of respecting and learning from these differences.
- Encouraging a culture of having universal human values as a foundation and base of dealing with the other who can be different in shape, or color, or belief, or any other differences.
- Empowering children and teenagers with skills about dealing with bullying, and protecting themselves from it.
- Spreading awareness, especially among caregivers, and who work with children and teenagers, about the effects of bullying, and their role in controlling it.
- Building cooperation with educational institutes to put strategies about dealing with bullying and hinder it.
The Nine Main Pillars:
- Each person respects himself and respect others.
- The opinion of every person is respected and the opinions of others too.
- Learning from differences.
- Identifying the common grounds and building on them.
- Start conversations with the best in the other.
- Empathy with others and respect their feelings.
- Wishing for the other what we wish for ourselves.
- Developing the society together.
- Tolerance is a value that we adopt in life.
Highlights of “Me and the Other”:
- Training Manual for Trainers who work with children. It includes training workshops that conveys the nine pillars in interactive and fun ways.
- A story “We learn and have fun with our differences” that conveys the concept of respecting differences and learning from them.
- Animation of the story “We learn and have fun with our differences” in Arabic. and English. It could be watched on www.youtube.com/user/befreeprogram.
- “Me and the Other” booklet for youngsters. It explains the nine main pillars in dealing with others.
- Series of training workshops for children about protection and dealing with bullying.
