Since its launch in 2009 under UNESCO auspices, the Aladdin Project has been working to appease tensions and promote greater mutual knowledge among people of different cultures and religions in order to bring about changes in their attitudes and perceptions and contribute to the spreading of a culture of peace and tolerance. Such changes can ultimately come through a long-term strategy focusing on education and knowledge dissemination. To meet the challenges of overcoming deeply-imbedded misperceptions and mutual mistrust, the Aladdin Project has developed a strategy that combines concrete measurable educational and cultural projects (translations and production of books, syllabus development, educator training, summer school programs…) with public events (conferences, exhibitions, visits to memorial sites…).

In a world marked by increasing tensions and radicalization that are causing endless bloodshed and strife in the Middle East and serious fractures in European societies, ensuring harmonious interaction among people with plural religious and cultural identities, as well as their willingness to live together in harmony, is more than ever a priority. To address this challenge, the International Summer University for Intercultural Leadership brings together a wide array of young students from the Middle East, Europe, Africa and America, who have been selected by partner universities for their interest in intercultural exchange, but also their implication in civil society and university life. Through lectures, working groups, joint research projects and collective activities, the program enable students to develop their communication, listening and interaction skills with people of different cultures. The first class of the International Summer University was held in Istanbul in July 2013 and focused on the theme “The European Experience: from World Wars to reconciliation and cooperation”. In 2014, the program took place in Berlin, on the campus of Freie Universität on the theme: “Religion and Peace in the 21st century”.

The Aladdin Project Aladdin Project is an international organization based in Paris and created in 2009 under the auspices of UNESCO to promote intercultural dialogue, to prevent conflicts through a better knowledge of History and its teachings, to bring together world leaders and international institutions against Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and all forms of exclusion and racism, and to enhance mutual knowledge through the production, translation – into the languages of the relevant people – and propagation of books, films, documentaries, websites and other sources of information.

Bahçesehir University is a private university founded in Istanbul in 1997 to teach the future leaders of the country by training them to think critically, do research and by raising awareness of local and world-wide issues. The university fulfills international criteria and underlines the promotion of mutual respect, the appreciation of difference and a constructive way of expression. Currently, 15 000 students are enrolled, with 900 professors and 100 study programs on two campuses. The University also manages a unique network of primary and secondary schools in Turkey.

London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)

SOAS, University of London is the only Higher Education institution in Europe specialising in the study of Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East. SOAS is a remarkable institution. Uniquely combining language scholarship, disciplinary expertise and regional focus, it has the largest concentration in Europe of academic staff concerned with Africa, Asia and the Middle East. On the one hand, this means that SOAS scholars grapple with pressing issues – democracy, development, human rights, identity, legal systems, poverty, religion, social change – confronting two-thirds of humankind while at the same time remaining guardians of specialised knowledge in languages and periods and regions not available anywhere else in the UK. This makes SOAS synonymous with intellectual enquiry and achievement. It is a global academic base and a crucial resource for London. We live in a world of shrinking borders and of economic and technological simultaneity. Yet it is also a world in which difference and regionalism present themselves acutely. It is a world that SOAS is distinctively positioned to analyse, understand and explain. SOAS’ academic focus on the languages, cultures and societies of Africa, Asia and the Middle East makes it an indispensable interpreter in a complex world.