ALKHOBAR, 25 March — Nine students from Wyke College and the Hull Islamic Community, Yorkshire, England, are spending a week in Saudi Arabia as guests of Saad National Schools and the British Council.
The group arrived last Friday and will undertake a full program of activities in the Eastern Province before moving on to Jeddah tomorrow morning.
On Saturday, British Ambassador Sir Derek Plumbly and members of the British Council met with the visiting teens at Saad National Boys’ School. The group was enjoying a tour of the school, learning about the Saudi curriculum and socializing with some of Saad’s high school students.
In remarks to the assembled students, Plumbly said: “This visit speaks of a number of things which are quite important. First, it emphasizes the cooperation in education between the two countries. There are between 1,600 and 1,800 Saudis studying in the UK at any one time and we are very keen to push those links forward. Second, and even more important at this particular time when we are hearing about misunderstandings between the West and Saudi Arabia and more specifically about Britain and Saudi Arabia, this is an ideal opportunity to get to know and understand this society.”
Plumbly pointed out that there are more than 30,000 British nationals living in Saudi Arabia and hundreds of thousands of Saudis visiting the UK. But even so, it is vital that more work be done to create greater understanding between the people of these friendly nations, and he felt that the Muslim community in the UK would play a significant role as a bridge between the two cultures.
Last May a group of students from Saad National Schools visited Wyke College as part of an exchange program between the two schools. The trip focused on providing direct experience of UK higher education.
“According to the feedback we received from the boys, the visit was a great success,” explained Allen Swales, director of the British Council in West Saudi Arabia. “During their time in the UK, the group met Muhammad Naseem, a leader in the Muslim community in Hull, and they had an opportunity to go to the Hull Mosque and Education Center. The connection made between Naseem and these young people was ideal, so we chose him to lead the British students for this experience.”
Swales anticipates that the visit by the teens from Wyke College and Hull Islamic Community will be the first of many youth cultural exchanges between Saudi Arabia and the UK.
The British Council has undertaken a five-year initiative, “Connecting Futures”, which aims to improve cultural understanding between young people in the UK and the Islamic world. Under this umbrella, another trip to the UK by a group of Saudi students is already in the planning stage. It is hoped that in the coming years girls as well as boys will have the opportunity to participate.
“This is a wonderful experience for our British students,” said Naseem. “So many students wanted to take the trip that in the end we held an essay contest in which the boys wrote why they would like to visit the Kingdom. The winners of that competition are here with us. Some of the students in the group are Muslims and some are not, but they are all incredibly excited about coming and learning about life in Saudi Arabia.”
Arab News had a chance to meet these young British teens, whose challenging program includes a football match, a visit to the Saudi Aramco Oil Exhibition in the Eastern Province, a tour of the Balad district of Jeddah and, for the Muslims, a trip to Makkah.
“I am overjoyed to be here,” said British student Zia Salik. “This is the Holy Land and it is a dream to come and see what it is really like. It was so important for me to get past the propaganda that we hear in the UK and come to experience it for myself. I can’t wait to perform Umrah.”
Another British student, Tim Poskitt, said it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I may never get another chance to come here and I’ve taken the opportunity to learn about Saudi Arabia and understand its culture and people for myself,” he explained.
“You can’t believe everything you see on TV,” he added.
“By coming here to the Kingdom, I feel that I’ve accomplished only half my goal,” Farooq Aslam said. “I still have an important role to play when I get back home. I plan to write and speak out about my experience and I hope that the connections we make this week will blossom into something more substantial.”
