“Teamwork as a step towards coexistence” was the topic of a recent seminar held in Alexandria jointly by the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments and the Coptic Evangelical Association (CEA). Sheikhs, priests and media figures engaged in discussing problems of teamwork and teamwork as a means towards accepting the ‘other’.
Hani Ayad, the seminar’s organiser, gave the opening speech on behalf of Samira Luqa, head of the cultural dialogue forum at the CEA. There has been always an argumentative relationship between teamwork and coexistence, Mr Ayad explained; each depended on the other, and each was activated through the other. “This is the major point of the current seminar,” he noted.
The seminar was led by Adel Muhammad Medani, professor of psychology at al-Azhar University and marital affairs consultant, and Ali Ismail, a lecturer in psychology also from al-Azhar University. The manager of Demshier Religious Endowments in Minya, Upper Egypt, Sheikh Gamal Badr Kassab, said it was the responsibility those present, who were broadly representative of society, to transfer the concepts of teamwork and coexistence from theory into practice.
Once the human soul and mentality are flexible enough to function effectively in a team, accepting the ‘other’ naturally follows, suggested Father Maher Matta of the Evangelist Church in Shubra. If men of religion, journalists, and social figures can be helped to accept one other without marginalising the ‘other’, Father Samir Sadaq of Evangelist Church in Minya said, they could act as excellent role models for the entire community.
“Every member of a team can act positively under a leadership invested with democracy and farsightedness,” Shirley Waheeb of Minya University’s Faculty of Pharmacy said. Dr Waheeb explained that personal psychological tests served in self recognition and discovering one’s abilities, focusing on teamwork as a means of integration in society instead of selfhood.