The event, called “Building our Community: Next Steps in Healing,” drew about two dozen students and involved two presentations — one on the importance of engaging with other communities to combat prejudice and another on committing to public service to carry on the legacies of Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha.
Gary Glass, associate director for outreach and developmental programming at Duke’s counseling and psychological services, spoke first to the students about the importance of forming alliances with less familiar groups, potentially including atheists and humanists.
Common ground exists among dissimilar communities, he said. He cited a form students fill out when coming to CAPS, which asks about their religious or spiritual identity and how important it is to them.
“There are increasingly a number of students who identify as atheist and it’s very important to them,” Glass said. “Even a commonality of ‘my beliefs are very important to me’ may be a place of alliance.”
He asked the group why they think solidarity is important. Survival, protection and peace, students answered.
“The ideas of solidarity and alliances — they emerge from a different kind of relationship,” he said. “How can we approach exploring solidarity and creating alliances? By trusting a shared sense of meaning that we have in what it is that we’re pursuing.”
Leena El-Sadek, a Duke senior, then spoke to the group about various community service projects that students could get involved in.
Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha were dedicated to helping refugees from the Middle East, El-Sadek said, and the Triangle area has the largest refugee population in North Carolina.
