American Imam, Mohamad Bashar Arafat Meets with YES Alumni

Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Alumni with Imam Bashar and U.S. Embassy Cultural Affairs Officer.

On July 24, 2010, the U.S. Embassy hosted its first YES Alumni Forum on  “New Beginnings:  Obama & Islam” featuring American Imam, Mohamad Bashar Arafat at  the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.  Thirty Alumni of the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program  participated in a lively discussion centered on Globalization & Islam in America Under the Obama Administration and the impact of the YES program  around the world following President Obama’s June 2009 Cairo Speech.  The youth expressed full support for future Islamic Youth Forums designed to facilitate discussion on giving back to the community.   Several upcoming alumni projects such as the English Access Microscholarship Camp in November, community building and internship programs were discussed at the forum.

Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat, Founder and President of the Civilizations Exchanges and Cooperation Foundation, explained to the YES alumni how President Barack Obama and the United States have reached out to the Muslims of the world through his Cairo Initiative.  He demonstrated how people-to-people exchange programs between Muslims and non-Muslims have helped to dispel myths and misperceptions about each other, thus creating a better and more peaceful world.  The discussion continued with a slide presentation of some of the YES participants from the Muslim world expressing their opinions of how very hospitable the American families were who hosted them in the different parts of the U.S. and that had a tremendous positive effect on them.  The forum ended with questions posed by the YES alumni to Imam Bashar.
 
The Imam closed the program with a personal challenge to each of the YES alumni – to create their own personal legacy; to become a Malaysian version of Nelson Mandela or Barack Obama.