Inspiring Presentations by Ronit Baras
In an article about the upcoming Multicultural Conference for Women, the Gladstone Observer has told it readers
High profile speakers Ronit Baras and Ahmad Abughazaleh from Together for Humanity will engage participants with a presentation that provides opportunities to learn about diversity and commonality and questions assumptions about identity.
Replacing prejudice (largely religious and cultural) with mutual respect and co-operation is a major theme in their presentation.
I am honoured.
If you live in or around Gladstone, QLD, especially of you are a woman, come and join me and other speakers in a very special event on 5 August 2011.
Here is the description from the site of the organizers, WIN: Women’s Intercultural Network:
Offering a series of workshops and presentations by high profile speakers and educators in the fields of community cohesion and diversity. Participants are expected to gain a better understanding on issues related to maximising the benefits and dealing with the challenges of diversity including but not limited to topics such as prejudice, conflict resolution and community involvement and cohesion.
I am in the newspaper!
When politicians like MP Shayne Neumann are involved, the media becomes interested in what happens. This week, I ran a cultural diversity workshop for various organisations in Ipswich on with my colleagues from Together for Humanity and the event was captured by a quick reporter.
A JEW, a Muslim and a Christian came together to lead discussion in Ipswich yesterday about learning to live with differences of belief.
In the audience were more than 40 educators and community workers – police, school teachers, advocates for refugees, Red Cross and council representatives –who deal daily with religious diversity.
The first “diversity” workshop at Ipswich’s Civic Centre was put on by Together for Humanity, an Australian organisation set up in 2002 to promote understanding and tolerance.
Yesterday, I went to give a presentation at Griffith University for International Peace Day 2009. I talked about the foundation I coordinate in Queensland (Together for Humanity) and the important work we do with kids to ensure they do not grow up to be racist adults.
As part of the discussion, I gave very sad statistics about kids’ attitude towards different races and talked to the audience about the negative influence of the media and the kids’ parents at home.
At the end of the evening, a dark Indian woman thanked me for the talk and said it was alarming to see the figures on the screen.
“I have a story to tell you”, she said.
As you probably know by now, I love stories and after you read this, you will know why I wanted to pass this story on to you.
“I’m from Indian and I’m married to a Scottish man. Recently, our 3-years-old daughter’s birthday was coming. She said she wanted to invite friends from her day care center home, ‘But I don’t want to invite boys or blacks’, she said. I was very shocked. I’m as black as can be and always thought that because my husband has fair skin and comes from a different culture to mine, we are the perfect example of living in cultural harmony. I never thought my own daughter would say something like that”, she told me.
“What did you do?” I asked her.
“Well, I thought about it for a day and then told her, ‘You can choose who to invite to your party. Daddy is a boy and because you are not inviting any boys, Daddy won’t come to your party and I’m black and because you are not inviting blacks, I can’t come either, so you’re going to have to manage your own party. Have fun'”, she said.
“And…” I was so curious.
“Two days later, I asked her ‘Who did you invite for your birthday?’ and she said she’d invited a boy who is her best friend and a black girl who is a good friend”.
I thought that was brilliant! What would you do?
Ronit
The Griffith University Multi-Faith Centre invites members of all communities to its International Day of Peace Commemoration on Thursday, 17 September, 2009, 7:15-9:00pm.
I will be delivering one of the key presentations of this evening.
In 2002, the United Nations designated September 21st each year as the International Day of Peace (IDP), as a day to encourage all peoples and countries to make a commitment to world unity, a global ceasefire and non-violence.
This event is an opportunity for individuals, communities and organizations to witness and participate in a multi-faith commemoration for peace. In the lead up to the IDP, it will enable participants to link with millions of people and many governments, regional and non-government organizations, faith/religious communities and educational institutions engaged in IDP events.
Please RSVP by September 11
Dianne/Yaseen 3735-7052 or mfc@griffith.edu.au
Full invitation flyer fo IDP 2009
See you there,
Ronit
I met Elodie at one of my workshops. She had a French accent and was very curious about the concepts of first and second language. Her son was just a baby when she participated in my “Cross Cultural Awareness” course for public administrators in the Queensland government.
As a migrant, Elodie felt the gap at work between locals and migrants was widening. She came to my course to get some insights into possible ways to bridge this gap.
When she left, she said, “I’m so happy I met you when my son is just a baby. Everything so makes sense now and I have full confident about what I need to do”.
In the last two years, I’ve met Elodie a few of times when she was trying to organize a group at her workplace to support migrants and help locals and migrants communicate better with each other.
This week, she sent me this email:
Did I tell you my son can count to 15 in his 3 languages? Just turned 2… Speak to him in one language and he answers in another, never needs translation… It freaks some people, I find it fascinating. You gave me the best advice ever first time I spoke with you. Thanks, it really means a lot to me.
We speak English (all of us), French (me) and Italian (husband and my in-laws).
He spends 1 day/week with his Italian grandmother who only speaks Italian to him (with your recommendation, we asked and she is very happy to comply). I go home once a year where he baths in French and has no problem whatsoever communicating with other kids and adults.
It is the most amazing thing to observe, the non-translating part. For example, he learned face, lips, ears, eyes, etc in Italian and I was thinking oh I need to get him that in French too so we had a mummy/son moment and I was saying them in French and he already knew. Bizarre.
Life in a multilingual environment!
Thank you so much.
Elodie David-Quarta
A/Senior Administration Officer, Compliance Support Unit
Department of Environment and Resource Management
Yet another victory of one more family raising multilingual super kids.
Ronit
I have just run a cultural awareness workshop for government officers dealing with the provision of housing to low-income families. While I was telling them about cultures, languages and acceptance, they also told me some amazing things.
Low-cost housing is provided to many migrant and refugee families. In fact, as soon as people are recognized as refugees, they are immediately entitled to government housing until they can afford their own residence.
As humane as this may seem, the locals object to this privilege and protest against it as being discriminating against them. They say, “Why should someone come into the country and get something straight away, while others who grew up here don’t?”
The obvious answer, “Where would they go if they have no family and no friends here?” But this answer doesn’t satisfy some of the locals in government housing, who sometimes abuse the newcomers verbally and even by damaging their property.
If this is not bad enough, reports are that migrant families in government housing are polite, quiet and considerate. They take excellent care of their dwellings and carry out all of their obligations on time, despite the occasional harassment.
Another amazing fact is that in some migrant and refugee units, there are as many as 21 people living in 3 bedrooms! Compared to where they came from, they think it is better, because at least nobody is trying to kill them…
Now, equipped with their new cultural awareness, the housing officers can help refugees and migrants assimilate quicker into society, while making the locals feel a lot better about accepting them.
God, I love my work!
Ronit
I’ve just returned from presenting Language of the Heart at Uppert Mount Gravatt State School. Today is a student-free day and I was part of the teachers’ professional training.
Teachers are usually more switched on than the general population and keep up with new trends in education and educational technology, so I wasn’t sure how familiar they were with the acquisition of multiple languages. Besides, Upper Mount Gravatt students come from nearly every country on Earth.
As it turns out, this school has its own share of multicultural challenges and the teachers were very excited to discover the link between academic achievement and speaking several languages. But what excited them even more was the connection between speaking another language at home with the parents.
The Upper Mount Gravatt parents find it difficult to influence their kids’ values and direct their morals in English, because they can’t express themselves well enough to convey complex and/or emotional ideas. The teachers found a good explanation for what goes on in their classes and for why parents shy away from being involved at school.
I was very happy to be able to provide some relief to a challenging situation and help parents and teachers come together for the benefit of the kids.
The teachers agreed in the end that Language of the Heart should be attended by many of the parents at the school and I was thrilled to be able to make a difference with my presentation.
Here’s what one person said about Language of the Heart today:
I have totally changed the way I think about parents speaking in their language to their kids
Lisa Conroy, Teacher