In cooperation between the International Youth Exchange Program (Zajel) at the Public Relations Department and the Office of the University President Assistant for Graduate Affairs at An-Najah, a training workshop was organized on cultural differences and their role in reinforcing human communication. The event was administered by Margolin Masters from the Netherlands who spoke about the different concepts and perceptions regarding prejudices, how they are made and their role in offering an unreal perception.

  The workshop was attended by university students who were divided into groups and worked together to explain these concepts and look for their application in the Palestinian context.

The workshop aimed to introduce the students and train them to recognize the extent of media power and its role in instilling incorrect ideas in their minds, in addition to educating them about the importance of seeking accuracy and objectivity regarding all the information they receive from the different mass media sources.

The students were also introduced to the stereotypes exchange between the American, Japanese and European communities from the Palestinian perspective. The scoring system was used in the training and Professor Geert Hofstede’s approach to develop the scoring system to evaluate the stereotypes and prejudices when comparing different cultures with each other. This workshop has enabled the students to recognize the importance of knowing the difference that exists between people and to work on understanding and respecting such difference to enrich the human heritage and experience.

Students said the workshop was very useful to them and gave them the opportunity to become acquainted with the world’s different cultures. It also enabled them to learn how to accept and understand the other and change the stereotypes that have long existed because of media and movies which might not present us with a clear image of the different people around the world. Therefore, direct contact between humans is the key method to eliminate any misunderstanding leading to better relationships between people from various cultures.