Thank you!

Day 2 at the IMI conference was a fantastic experience for me - professionally, intellectually, and personally.

The morning began with a simultaneously heartbreaking and encouraging presentation on resilience training based on the experience of employees at the American Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. Having lost several of their own to the violence plaguing the community, it was heartening to hear that through cross-cultural community resilience exercises, various groups within the Consulate were able to begin the healing process. That case study made me think about other potential applications in intercultural dialogue for the model being used by Ray Leki and his team at the Foreign Service Institute.

In Suzanne Zaldivar's session about the challenges of consulting in the midst of Afghan culture, we discussed the importance of self-awareness and being present in those moments when one can feel totally overwhelmed by your submergence in a totally alien culture. I personally found discussions about how to build trust most enlightening as that is the ultimate goal of the British Council as an organization.

I must say that I was most inspired by Ambassador Akbar Ahmed in his speech about the situation in which Muslim Americans find themselves. I found the argument he used about the foreign policy implications (i.e. - blunders) of the surge in anti-Muslim feeling in the US quite compelling. It says something very powerful about the world we live in and about American society when General David Petraeus on the one hand has to appeal for a pastor in Florida to not burn the Quran and when Rep. Peter King uses his position to launch a public investigation into Muslim radicalization in America which reveals no new information or insights.

As before, however, I was greatly heartened to hear about the incredible work of "Luby" Ismail and Daniel Tutt who are effectively combating Islamophobia through film and dialogue. I was particularly excited about this session because it fell in line so closely with the work the British Council is trying to do with the Our Shared Future and Our Shared Europe projects - trying to address the extreme narratives which have emerged in European and American discourse around the role of Muslim and Islam in Western society.

This conference has been a wonderful opportunity for my personal and professional development, so thank you IMI and the Education and Development Fund for this unforgettable experience!