At the core of Soliya’s communication model is dialogue that allows you to 'engage with difference'.

It enables authentic communication that goes beyond the surface and grows from disagreement and conflicts.

    • Develop participants’ cross-cultural communication skills and ability to engage in constructive dialogue across difference

    • Enable participants to recognize the necessity of engaging constructively with alternative perspectives to craft sustainable solutions to shared problems

    • Develop the ability to represent one’s points of view and provide space for hearing the points of view of multiple and diverse parties in a productive discussion process

    • Encourage participants to approach differences with a genuine curiosity and an intention for understanding

    • Allow participants to connect with others’ experiences and feelings. 

    • Enhance participants’ ability to appreciate and respect, even if not agreeing with, diverse perspectives, and recognizing these diverse views are a result of a thought process that is highly affected by social norms, biases, emotions and experiences, just as one’s own views

    • Provide participants with the opportunity and encourage them to develop positive relationships with one another, relationships of mutual respect and understanding 

    • Develop the ability to think more critically and complexly about issues relevant to relations between “Western societies” and “predominantly Muslim societies”

    • Encourage all participants to have the opportunity to genuinely re-examine and analyze pre-existing opinions and beliefs in a space in which transformation and reconsideration of existing views is possible

    • Allow participants to gain understanding of the perspective/ narrative of others in the group- not only the positions taken or the opinions expressed, but specifically the underlying emotions, assumptions, values, biases, social norms and experiences that shape these positions

    • Help participants develop a clearer understanding of their own perspective, and develop an awareness of the emotions, assumptions, values, biases, social norms as well as one’s personal relationship with the issues 

    • Allow participants to explore how their identity impacts the way they view and approach the world, and how they communicate with those with different perspectives

    • Develop a long-term interest in cross-cultural communication and engagement with different perspectives, values and cultures

    • Enable participants with the ideas, skills, tools, and opportunities to engage constructively across difference

    • Participants feel responsible to engage with difference cooperatively

Goals of the Dialogue

Soliya’s well-established dialogue model, rooted in intergroup contact theory, is designed to engage diverse, small groups of students in facilitated, authentic and sustained learning journeys as well as address difficult topics in a context of increased polarization and destructive engagement.