Students from the Institute of Oriental Studies and International Relations Liliya Romadan, Albina Zabbarova and Leisan Ryzvanova took part in the international project “Making friends with the help of spiritual service”. This event was organized by UPF.
About fifty people participated in this project. Representatives from Pakistan, Egypt, Spain, Bangladesh and Nepal took part in the forum. Our delegation consisted of 9 people. Liliya was honored to be the head of our mission.
Friendship, mutual understanding, tolerance, balanced intercultural dialogue, fostering of respect towards religion – all these humanistic ideas and many others were declared within this project. On the contrary, they became raison d’etre for all participants and promoted the establishment of trust relations between them. Certainly, mutual understanding and mutual assistance come to the fore in such environment. Namely these points helped Liliya to cope with her mission and discover new borders of interpersonal relations.
Llilya, other members of our delegation and all participants of the event had to create and learn “the borders” while they performed various group and interactive tasks aimed at increase of participation of religious community in spiritual life; expansion of valuable knowledge and leader`s skills fostering; encouragement of direct communication with representatives of various ethnic and religious groups; increase of level of intercultural communication experience.
The first section of tasks consisted of practical assignments aimed at the increase of cultural level of tolerance and understanding with the help of direct communication of youth ambassadors – project participants with representatives of religious communities. So, participants made their contribution to renovation of orphan asylum , construction of wall in Buddhist monastery. This monastery is a spiritual, social and educational center for population of Banepa and Katmandu.
The second section consisted of the speeches of famous experts and public people on making good relations and culture of interreligious dialogue.
The third section was the most interesting from the point of view of broadening cultural knowledge: the participants visited the holy places for performing Nepal religious cults (Buddhist monasteries, Hindu chapels, churches and mosques), updated their knowledge about religious development of the Kingdom.
Finally, the fourth set implied direct and non-official communication of all event participants that was performed under the guide of cooperation and mutual understanding.
The culminating moment of the international project “Making friends with the help of spiritual service” was the closing ceremony. Representatives of nearly all society strata participated there: politicians, public people, scientists, lawyers, religious leaders… They again underlined the importance of making friendship with the help of religions and encouraged all youth ambassadors to speak less, but to act more.
In conclusion we will give a word to Llilya who gladly agreed to share with us her impressions on trip:
- In my opinion, Nepal is the most mysterious Asian Kingdom. Due its geographical position and government policy it was closed for a very long period of time from the world. I am so glad that I had an opportunity to visit this amazing country and participate in this project. We got over thousands of kilometers and it wasn`t vain. I headed the Russian delegation for the first time. This was a very valuable experience of negotiating and making friendship. Generally, the Nepal project gave me energy and positive emotions. Me and my friends knew the truly beauty of Nepal through getting acquainted with people who work in charity, state and public organizations. And so we had a meeting with the Minister for social work and religious leader of Nepal. We could productively discuss the youth policies of both countries. Along with attending workshops and listening to reports, we participated in the series of humanitarian acts and establish relations with students from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt and Spain.
We became friends in a week. Besides participating in official program we could see majestic Himalayas and the planet`s highest point – Everest. Concerning the capital, Katmandu it is a rather big city that combines contemporary frenzied rhythm and charm of the past. Narrow streets astound by diverse architecture elements, hundreds of temples and small religious constructions live by themselves, leaving us fuss of routine with its endless tides of rickshas, car signals that never fall into silence. In whole, from one side, trip to Nepal was a real trial for us - Europeans, from the other – gift of destiny. This project helped me to get convinced that good is basis for the whole world.