On the 17th of June 2004, the RTI Club attended a workshop about personal identity. The event took place at the Peace Center of Bethlehem from 3 to 5 pm. Awni, the lecturer, came from a small village called Majd Kroum in Al Jalil. He specializes in social work and psychology. Fifteen teenagers, including eleven members of the RTI Club, participated in the event.
He began the workshop by giving the participants a warm up: he had everyone walk around the hall while listening to soft music. Then, he divided them into three groups and had them introduce themselves to each other.
The participants then sat on the floor and Mr. Awni explained the concepts of “personal identity” and “personality” and the differences between the two. After that, he gave each participant a sheet of paper to work on individually. They wrote out the letters of their names in capitals and next to every letter they wrote a word or a characteristic that they have within their personality and they drew a picture to represent each personality trait.
After that, they gathered again, and everyone was asked to show their work and explain it. This was a way to get to know each other better.
Zaid Qumsieh is one of the RTI Club members who participated in the workshop, and these were his impressions of the event: “Well, I liked this workshop very much. The thing that I learned was the concept of the personal identity and what it consists of. It was useful in general and I had a good time.”