MOSAIC: ASSOCIATION OF EGYPTIAN, LEBANESE, PALESTINIAN AND SYRIAN CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Thursday 21st May, a day of national celebration for Belgium, but a working day for the international VOICE reporters. A habit that became passion, our monthly interviews continue with an other very interesting cultural student association, 3 years old in the family of LOKO, but very active with many annual activities. MOSAIC: “A group of friends, four different countries, from the Middle East out of all places!- colors and sharp edges, pieces of puzzles that generally tend to fall into place and sometimes just do not; a book example of a stunning mosaic. Where of all places would you gather all of this and make the world a tiny bit smaller if not in Leuven?”

VOICE - What does Mosaic stand for?
MOSAIC: MOSAIC is a K.U.Leuven cultural club. We organize events and activities of themes from the Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian cultures. We were a company of people coming from these countries, so, we decided to create this group in order to promote our cultures and to have actions that bring us together with people from our countries and with others who are interested in getting to know us and our culture. When we started, we also had the help of friends of different nationalities, and especially Belgians.

VOICE - Is it  clearly a cultural Organization?
MOSAIC: Definitely. We are only interested in dealing with cultural matters; we don’t deal with any politics or religion. The main idea is that Belgians, as well as the whole international community are not familiar with our cultures. What people are mainly aware of are aspects of war and death…mainly the evening news.
Political problems are issues that are widely discussed and people can be informed from different sources, but our opinion is that, apart from that, we also have a life and a culture which we would like to be known .
VOICE - What is your target group?
MOSAIC: Our activities do not only target the locals of these 4 countries but mostly the international community, to which we want to promote our cultures. Of course it’s nice if people from the 4 countries do participate, but Mosaic is mainly targeting people who are unfamiliar with our culture.
As for our team that comes up with ideas and makes them alive, we also welcome anyone to be a member. In our team, we have had Erasmus students, alumni, students of Arabic studies, PhD students, people who work; so there is no restriction for who can join either the activities or the team. We also have a lot of friends of different nationalities who help on a regular basis or occasionally. The Belgian presence, for example, is very strong and vital for the team.

VOICE - What are the activities you organize?
MOSAIC: We organize all kinds of activities related to culture. There were some concerts at Stuk and a story-telling night. We had an event at the Oratorianhof cultural center where we combined live music and belly dancing with our traditional food, in a beautifully outdoor decorated setting. We just organized a Sunday brunch in Pangaea.  We provide also cooking classes and lessons of basic Arabic writing a conversation. Furthermore, we collaborated with “Der Machine” in a concept of cultural parties. This is a small project we took over together with Pangaea: we cooperate with different organizations and we have separate parties with each organization’s own music, for instance Arabic, world music, Balkan etc. Furthermore, we are active with 30 CC, Leuven’s cultural centre. We have plans of collaborating with them to bring artists for concerts from the countries we represent.

VOICE - And your future activities?
MOSAIC: We are going to organize a movie marathon that will last for a whole afternoon and night. Four movies will be projected. For the end of this academic year and the beginning of the new one, we are planning a DJ party at the beginning of September. Next year we also want to organize some lectures of cultural assets. For example, there is a special carpet store in Belgium which we would be very interested to have somebody give a small talk about the history of eastern carpets and their stories. Furthermore, there is an oriental singer who we would invite to make a workshop for oriental singing. We do prefer these activities to politics.

VOICE - Why?
MOSAIC: We do not want to occupy with things that are not directly related to culture because all the rest are sensitive issues for us. We are all get along excellently when it comes to everyday life and activities. There are plenty of organizations, experts, think tanks who carry out these political discussions. If we would do the same we wouldn’t have anything to add. We want to get out of this gloomy political loop; life is not only politics.
Moreover, besides the activities that we do, one of the main ideas of MOSAIC is to create a good working atmosphere for people in the team itself who come from countries with conflicts, different religions, or political orientations. We want to abolish stereotypes, we really get along together as team of different pieces – a mosaic. And even if a job can be done by only one person, we try to split it to several small responsibilities so that everyone can have a part. Our aim is to focus on things that bring us together. Up until now, we proved that cultures co-exist and we are proud that we have the possibility to make a difference.

VOICE - What is the main problem of Mosaic?
MOSAIC: The fact that members come and go in such a student city. In total, we are around 20-25 members, although not all are very active; the regulars that make the ideas and make them real are around 10. This year was very difficult because 3 major members were finishing their PhD, so it was not possible for them to contribute – where their contribution is quite precious for us. |