{"id":286,"date":"2015-04-13T16:05:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T16:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=286"},"modified":"2015-04-13T16:05:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T16:05:31","slug":"young-afghans-in-australian-suburb-to-make-a-stand-against-bullying-and-prejudice-within-the-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=286","title":{"rendered":"Young Afghans in Australian suburb, to make a stand against bullying and prejudice within the community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Afgan<\/a>A team of young, religiously diverse Afghans is calling for an end to bullying and prejudice within their community. <\/p>\n

Fatima Shafaie, Sayed Mehdi Jaafari and Tamana Cina are leading an ambitious project called Afghans Unite! which they hope will bring together the diverse Afghan cultures in Australia.<\/p>\n

Sunnis, Shi\u2019as, Tajiks and everyone in between can take part in the project which will open dialogues between the groups while teaching film and digital media skills to spread the message of unity to other Afghans.<\/p>\n

After their families migrated to Australia, the project leaders discovered old prejudices had also made the journey and was now manifesting within young, Australian Afghans.<\/p>\n

They could see the symptoms in the schoolyards through bullying and in the streets with people joining gangs.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t know why they are fighting; they are just told to act a certain way,\u201d Ms Shafaie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be an understanding between the religions and cultures and now is the time to build bridges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want another Afghanistan in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

By having all three of the co-ordinators from different religious backgrounds, Ms Shafaie is confident they will be able to act as a bridge and moderate conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited and nervous as it could become quite a heated conversation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The three have all experienced, or have friends who were bullied at school by other Afghans.<\/p>\n

Ms Shafaie said she experienced mockery for the different way she prayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day I went to a prayer room and I noticed all the other Sunni girls were whispering and they mocked the way I was praying,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While 99 per cent of Afghans are Muslim, about 80 per cent of those are Sunni with 10 per cent being Shi\u2019a.<\/p>\n

As a Shi\u2019a Hazara, Ms Shafaie carries a clay tablet to use in her prayers.<\/p>\n

The other girls found this unusual, so teased her about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey felt as though I was worshipping the clay instead of God,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI then noticed many of the Shi\u2019a didn\u2019t use the prayer room and I wondered if it was because of the bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Jaafari said the younger generation are removed from the old conflicts and it made little sense to cling to these behaviours in their new home.<\/p>\n

Each participant will receive a Cert IV in Community Service for completing the course from TAFE which is a valued qualification for employment in community service work.<\/p>\n

Details: afghans unite@aahya.org.au or phone 0431\u2009953\u2009958.
\nSource: Dailytelegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team of young, religiously diverse Afghans is calling for an end to bullying and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[17,9,19,28,25],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",650,366,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",640,360,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",640,360,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",650,366,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",650,366,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",650,366,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",650,366,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Afgan-call.jpg",480,270,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Uncategorized","tag_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}