World Affairs Council of Ctrl Fl

We had an eventful day on Tuesday with the visitors from Azerbaijan. Going on the activities with them was very instructive. At the end of the day, I learned more on Azerbaijan (history and culture) than I would have learned during a whole semester in a class on the country. My best experience of the day was assisting the prayer in the mosque. I have watched Muslims prayed before, but never in a mosque; it was a different experience. The interesting thing about it to me was the emotion and connection I felt to my God. The mosque invoked the same feeling of serenity I feel inside of a church; it gave me the confirmation that God is truly in our heart. All in all, I enjoyed the program very much, and I hope that the visitors did as well.

Bernie

This week I contacted Kristen Breunig. She is the Market Development Manager at Advanced Solar Photonics, which was the first company to build first solar panel plant in Florida. She was recommended to us by Tracy Turk. I sent her an email with the information about the visitors from Latin America and the preliminary program plan. She said that they are excited to participate in this event. We also found out that we were not able to get the ecotourism program. We found this unusual because they are sending them to Miami which does not have as many places to take the visitors. I also worked on a Human Trafficking proposal for a group from Kazakhstan in May. I am still waiting to hear from Mr. Miller. I worked on updating a proposal for Business I had sent for a visitor from Indonesia. I had to add some resources because they wanted to focus mostly on women leaders in business in the area. Finally we finished putting together the programs for the visitors from Azerbaijan.

This past Tuesday (4-14) we at the office had the pleasure of accompanying a group of four Azeri’s who were in Central Florida to learn about “Islam in America.” Our first appointment on the day was at UCF with Dr. Sadri’s “Middle Eastern Politics” class for a discussion with students about Islam, the visitors were asked really great questions by the students about the role of Islam and religion in Azerbaijan, and the visitors were happy to share. Azerbaijan is a secular state where a strong, youthful religious presence is on the rise. As a former Soviet Satellite, Azeri’s were banned from practicing religion which is why in Azerbaijan religion is still re-emerging and growing. After the appointment at UCF,  we traveled to the Islamic Society of Central Florida’s Leader’s Prepatory School, where the visitors met with young muslims in America, and were able to share their own experiences living as religious followers in a secular state. After a wonderful lunch, afternoon prapers, and a great presentation on the community work and projects that the ISCF is involved in, it was time for our visitors to return to their hotel and prepare for their flights the next day. The trip was a great learning experience for everyone involved, and our visitors should be able to return home with a better understanding of Islam in America that they can share with their friends and families. I know only have good things to say about Azeris after meeting the visitors!

Hasan Bhatty

ICCF

At last weeks board meeting we had the privilege of hosting 13 Iraqi Journalists and the opportunity to ask them for their insight and perspectives on many aspects, especially that of Print Media. When I first met the group as they arrived at the History Center, they seemed ecstatic to be meeting me, presumably because they thought I could speak Arabic, although they maintained their warm disposition after learning that my family is Pakistani and that all I could speak was broken Urdu (which one of the Iraqi’s could also speak coincidentally, which led to a very broken introduction.) Today plans will be finalized for the Azerbaijani group arriving over the weekend, which will be learning about religious Community Activism.