Press Reports: UNION TRIBUNE

International students come together at SDSU

By Sherry Saavedra
STAFF WRITERS
July 21, 2007

SAN DIEGO – Nadir Ozyukselen, a Tujavascript:void(0)rkish Cypriot, and Aristos Papaonisiforou, a Greek Cypriot, belong to opposing communities in the conflict over the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. And neither has ever known a person from the other side.

International students gathered at the Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego for a workshop during their three-week stay at San Diego State University.

But they've met in America as part of the first program at San Diego State University designed to teach 21 young people from a dozen countries about leadership and resolving conflicts.

The international university students come from nations such as Bosnia, Moldova, Morocco, Kazakhstan, India, Romania, China and Nepal.

During the three-week program, which ends tomorrow, the visitors toured the border, visited the Maritime Museum, celebrated the Fourth of July in Coronado and participated in seminars on anger and revenge, diplomacy and nonviolent social change.

Sophary Noy, a 24-year-old student at the Royal University of Law and Economics in Cambodia, said the program gave her hope for the future and skills to deal with political problems at home. This will be useful, she said, in her role as staff writer for a magazine published by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has been gathering evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

The program has been funded through a five-year, $1.7 million donation from the San Diego-based Fred J. Hansen Foundation. The program, which has one student from the University of San Diego and nine from SDSU, covers travel, room and board, and activity costs.

Students say most of the learning came from keeping company with peers from across the globe.

“I've built connections with people around the world,” Noy said. Dilip Ghimire, 21, of the Republic of Kazakhstan, said this was a rare opportunity to observe how the United States approaches conflict.

“We have different problems (in Kazakhstan),” said the student at Eurasian National University. “Some say we have a democracy, but I don't think we do. I think we're on our way, but it's not one yet.”

Ghimire, who plans to start a business in international construction or trade, said he's learned that these vastly different countries have common problems such as gang and border issues. Kazakhstan, which declared independence in 1991, is home to numerous ethnic groups, he said.

“We all want to establish peace,” he said. “I've learned that to do that, we should learn to be tolerant.”

Ron Bee, managing director of SDSU's Hansen Summer Institute on Leadership and International Cooperation, said the foreign participants are university students or recent graduates who have demonstrated leadership ability in their homelands. Noy, for example, coordinated 200 volunteers to help Cambodian villages rebuild many years after the Khmer Rouge was overthrown.

The students are all on their first trip to the United States and have been affected by poverty or conflict at home.Goran Dedovic, for example, fled Bosnia in 1993 to escape starvation and the danger of bombs and snipers. Dedovic, 26, immigrated to Sweden and is studying media and communications at Sõdertõrn University College.

During a class this week on negotiations, SDSU lecturer Lisa Maxwell, a senior trainer for the National Conflict Resolution Center in San Diego, used aikido to make a point. She asked the students to pair up face-to-face and put their palms against one another and push.

“OK, who had control?” Maxwell asked. Nearly half raised their hands.

“Sometimes when we're negotiating we're trying to push our way to get what we want,” she said.

Through another martial arts move, Maxwell demonstrated how to step aside but, at the same time, not give in, enabling them to see the other person's perspective.

As SDSU's program winds down, many participants have formed friendships they plan to nurture when they leave. Ozyukselen has discovered that despite their differences, she and Papaonisiforou crave the same things for Cyprus, which has been split into a Greek Cypriot-controlled south and Turkish-occupied north since Turkey invaded in 1974.

“We've had lots of wars and fights about the territory, but (Papaonisiforou) said he wants peace,” said Ozyukselen, a 19-year-old student at Eastern Mediterranean University. “That's a surprise for me because that's what I want.

Ozyukselen said she's started to better understand the perspective of Greek Cypriots, who occupy about two-thirds of the island. The two both want a unified state, and Ozyukselen believes the summer program offered tools to get there.