On the 18th of July, Affinity hosted around 30 Melbourne Muslim Youth from various communities, who were part of a La Trobe University Muslim youth study leadership program.Their last visit before the program finished was to attend the Affinity Centre to hear what types of Dialogue activities that Affinity has been involved in over the past nearly 10 years. Around 10 youth from Sydney also attended the discussions.
The day started off with Affinity Secretary Rahile Ansari giving the group a presentation about Affinity and the work we conduct in building relations.
This was followed by a quick Mosque tour of Auburn Gallipoli Mosque, where they also attended the prayer service. After that they returned to the Affinity Centre for lunch hosted by Affinity.
After lunch, Mehmet Ozalp Executive Director of ISRA Australia,gave the youth a talk on how to lead a successful organisation, which alerted the group to some of the ideas that were discussed.
After a short coffee break, Zuleyha Keskin also from ISRA Australia, conducted a discussion session with the youth, asking them to fill out a survey on ‘Living in Australia as a Muslim’. A very in depth discussion stemmed from this session, with both the Melbourne and Sydney youth getting a chance to discuss issues such as identity, media and appreciating being Australian.
As the day came to a close the group thanked Affinity for organising the event and left for the airport.
We would like to also thank them for coming down and thank Larry Marshall who organised the whole program.
