Last week [early February 2015] I participated in a Together for Humanity interfaith program at my school, Punchbowl Boys High School. This program was led by Rabbi Zalman Kastel; Sheikh Ahmad Abdo; Taha Allam, an ex-student of my school; and Christian Pastor Greg Lake, who used to be a manager of the Christmas Island refugee detention centre.
When Greg told us about a young boy who lost his family and came to Christmas Island as an asylum seeker, I got a tear in my eye. I was trying to think what that boy went through and couldn’t imagine myself in his situation. After hearing a lot of stories from Greg about refugees and kids risking their lives to enter this country for a new chance at life, I started thinking and thanking God that I was born in this country and that my family and I didn’t need to risk our lives to enter this beautiful country.
I respect Australia a lot, I am proud to say that this is my country. As I have been taking a lot from Australia, I wish that someday I could repay it. Sheikh Ahmed told a story about when he was in Year 8 he got bullied and one day when he was walking home a group of bullies started following him and saying that he would not reach home. They were threatening him. His sister saw this as she was going past so she took him by his hand and took him home. Sheikh Ahmed’s parents said that they should report it to the local police station as it was getting out of hand. That day they reported it. After many years, he told us that on Thursday last week he was going to become a Police Commissioned Officer. He is very proud of himself because he is repaying his country and the police for what they did for him when he was much younger.
In the program last week I learned about how Judaism, Christianity and Islam have stuff in common. Like the Jews have the prophet Ibrahim as well as Islam. Christianity believes in Jesus and in Islam he is a prophet. Before I participated in the program, I thought that all religions hated Islam. I hated it when I used to go into the city with my family, and my mother is scarved, people would give us “dirties”, that is dirty looks, from their body language I inferred they were telling us “Why are you here? This is not where you belong.” Now I know that not all religions or people who are not Muslims think about Muslims in a bad way, it is only some people. I realised that religious leaders from other religions respected Islam as if it was their own religion and they were not trying to change or mock your beliefs. I hope that one day we will have another course with these people as I learned many things from them and I like to talk with experienced people as I learn new things.
Over these two days, we learned about respect, communication, we had inspiration and I benefited in this course by knowing what I want to do in my life and how to treat other people.
