RECIPIENTS’ STORIES

Salim Ahmed Al-Jahwari, left, and Liat Shetret
meet with a workshop attendee

Political Science Alumna and Multiple Scholarship Recipient Liat Shetret Brings a Peace-Building Workshop to UIC

Backed by a $10,000 grant from the Davis Peace Project and frustrated by failed grassroots initiatives, UIC alumna Liat Shetret returned to campus recently as co-organizer of the workshop "People Building Peace: Rallying Youth for Intergenerational Change in the Arab-Israeli Conflict."

Facing this heated conflict head on is nothing new to Shetret, who as an Honors College student, designed and co-taught a course titled "Milestones in the Arab-Israeli Peace Process." She was heavily involved in organizing interfaith efforts through campus groups and public service. She considers UIC a supportive environment for this type of program, which aims to move the peace dialogue forward.

"Bringing this to UIC is sort of a continuation," says Shetret, who received UIC’s top undergraduate award, the Riddle Prize, in 2007. As a UIC student, she received nearly 30 scholarships and fellowships for academic excellence, leadership and public service. In May, 2007, she graduated magna cum laude with a double major in political science and psychology.

Shetret, now an international affairs graduate student at Columbia University, teamed with fellow Columbia graduate student Salim Ahmed Al-Jahwari to select a diverse and balanced group of college students and guest speakers for the workshop last summer.

Attendees of the workshop, including Salim and Liat, model
their workshop hoodies

Shetret, an American-born Israeli, and Al-Jahwari, an Omani Muslim, represent opposing sides of the conflict. But they share a common goal—uniting youth for a generation of change. They designed the program for future policymakers interested in diplomacy and conflict management. Many participating students had personal experiences with the Arab-Israeli conflict, while others simply sought greater understanding of the issues.

Sessions focused on the history and challenges of the conflict, Judaism, Islam, the role of the United States, and skill-building exercises such as nonviolent communication, consensus building, activism, event planning and alliance and leadership development.

Projects involved role playing and developing potential resolutions. Guest speakers from government, academia and organizations made presentations and took part in group discussions. "Intense and emotional" were words commonly used to describe the program’s initial sessions, where participants could vent their frustrations.

"A program like this looks beyond the idea of simply peace and goes more into the logistics of how to obtain peace, how to talk with people, how to understand and simply empathize with those different viewpoints and perspectives," says Murad Omery, a student in the UIC course taught by Shetret whose parents emigrated from the West Bank.

Shetret and Al-Jahwari hope students gained the skills and knowledge necessary to make an impact on their own campuses and in their future careers. In addition to writing an article on the challenges of developing interfaith initiatives, they aspire to expand the program.

Workshop attendees listen intently during
Liat’s presentation

"We’d love to continue this and bring it to other campuses. I think it’s really critical that other campuses experience the interfaith power and movement, particularly on this conflict and topic," says Shetret. "It’s a wonderful platform for dialogue."

Shetret credits UIC faculty and staff with their assistance in making her career goals possible. As someone who has been financially independent since age 16, her scholarships and fellowships― such as the nationally prestigious J.W. Saxe Award and the McKelvie Scholarship, as well as LAS’s Jeff E. Lewis Scholarship―were very important; they allowed her to spend summers in study abroad and distinguished scholar programs.

"I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for a lot of UIC people," she said.

Adapted from a UIC News article by Brian Flood, October 22, 2008.