Muslims in Visegrad

Project Summary

Multiculturalism is still one of the most suitable tools for living together in our civilized world. In our project we will use the Visegrad platform to show how regional experiences can to be shared and turned into the good practice. We will use our local partners for research and educational activities to show to majority society how do the minorities live in their country. By the experience of Monastic Community from Syria we want to show how Christians live in Arab country and provide then to public the view of living together as one society.

Our goals are to open the public debate, interest young people and media in Euro-Mediterranean region and give to the states apparatus relevant information about the establishment of Muslim communities in Visegrad countries. We hope this will help to prevent from social exclusion and xenophobia.

Our project is unique owing to the focus on somewhat neglected Visegrad countries. Although the Muslim community is numerically small in comparison with Western Europe, the trend of dynamic growth is evident after EU accession. The population had been long isolated from the world and is highly suspicious of Muslims now. The project aims to raise awareness of customs, rituals, ways of thinking and Muslim communities and enable muslims better integration into mainstream society. Through the presentation of the activities of Christian monastery entitled Deir Mar Musa Habashi in Syria we would like to give an evidence that the harmonic coexistence of Christians and Muslims in the Arab world could be possible and without insurmountable obstacles.

We will produce the studies about the lives of Muslims communities in Visegrad country (using the common background of these countries and possibility to share the experiences). The studies could be good source of information and an instrument for education of multiculturalism in different level of schools. One of our overall objectives is then to get this discussion not only to public but also inside the state apparatus. We have signal that our governments are interested in these kind of activities. So we hope our conclusions will help to improve daily life of Muslim immigrants.

Our project have direct and indirect objectives.

Direct ones are:

Foster communication between minority and majority of the society.
Show the good practice of living together.
Show the positivness of different cultures (relevant picture, not just like in media).
Open the discussion about diversity in our cities (this is not a popularized theme and it is basically untouched by NGO).