SUSI Scholar 2019 Recap - Dialogue Across Difference
This summer, the Dialogue Institute hosted a Religious Pluralism Institute for another group of eighteen international scholars in collaboration with the U.S. Department of State. The 2019 cohort was another great group of participants and we would like to thank our community and Board Members who supported the Dialogue Institute’s efforts for another summer and engaged our scholars. Some highlights from this year include a session with Better Angels and a visit to a Pennsylvania prison with The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program.
Better Angels is a grassroots organization created by citizens in 2016 in an effort to bring Democrats and Republicans together to engage and understand one another. Their workshops bring 5-7 Democrats together with 5-7 Republicans to discuss experiences, beliefs, and getting to know each other beyond stereotypes. The scholars were able to observe what constructive dialogue can look like across deeply divided political lines. The Dialogue Institute was happy to collaborate with Better Angels to provide this experience to our scholar participants because political polarization is a serious concern in many countries.
Additionally, scholars had the opportunity to attend a workshop with The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program at the SCI-Phoenix prison outside Philadelphia. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program began in 1997 to facilitate dialogue and education across social barriers by bringing together college students and incarcerated students for a semester. David Krueger, along with the founder of Inside-Out, Lori Pompa, invited our SUSI Scholars to participate in a workshop with a group of dialogue facilitators who were trained by Inside-Out and currently incarcerated at the prison. The workshop, “Dialogue and Learning Beyond the Walls that Divide Us” included an interactive exercise which demonstrated how individuals can view the same shared experience with vastly different perspectives. All participants left the event with a new frame of mind and grateful for the opportunity for such an experience. Dialogue Institute Chairman, Majid Alsayegh, attended the session and found the program to be deeply moving and humanizing.
These highlighted sessions demonstrate how the SUSI Religious Freedom program works to engage all sides of the dialogue and humanize each person at the table. The impact of our SUSI programs reached far beyond our scholar participants and lends insight and perspective to our staff, Board Members, and greater community as well.