Italian Group about "It's about choice"

Interview of Michel Amoussou from Italy after the Training Course "It's about choice" in Berlin.

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Can you give us your opinion about the project “It´s about choice“?

It was a great experience that allowed me to meet new people from different European cultures and countries. I was able to improve my English by speaking it every day with the other participants of the training. The organizers were very friendly and managed to deal with all people in effective and innovative ways during the sessions. We were able to explore the city and get to know the most important places thanks to an activity we carried out. All in all it was a nice Training course that if I could I would like to do it again.

Do you think Islamophobia is a threat for our society? Although we are in 2021, our society still has these problems. Many people still follow these sick ideologies dictated by people's ignorance. People see the attacks of Islamic extremists and think that all Muslims are people to be avoided. moreover it is thought that in the Koran the faithful are incited to violence against infidels but this is not true. Whoever interprets the verses of the Koran in a wrong and extreme way believes that he tries to convince the other faithful of their ideas. There are still people who lure others to bring them into an Islamic extremization process to get them to do whatever they tell them to do. all these problems still exist today and we can see it on the news and people's stories.

What can be done to combat Islamophobia on community, national or international level? In my opinion, schools should talk more to their students about these issues, organizing meetings with specialists in the sector. Talking about it more people would understand the reality behind this religion which has nothing different from the others in the world. Heads of state who cast a bad light on Muslims for their political purposes should be prosecuted in my opinion. Meetings could be organized with Muslim faithful and preachers to clarify people's doubts about this religion. I think the key to solving this problem is to talk a lot about it with people and especially with young people. We need to raise awareness on this topic to prevent hatred from spreading due to ignorance and fear of the different on the part of our society. I think that this is the only way we can at least mitigate this problem and move towards a better world.