Saturday, October 30, 2010

Holocaust Awareness Week

This coming week at the AC will be Holocaust Awareness Week. We will hold several events around the theme of the Holocaust. The purpose of these events has nothing to do with taking a side on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but simply to educate people about the genuine human tragedy that was the Holocaust. If you think that the Holocaust never happened or was not as bad as it seems, I especially hope that you will attend. Whatever you believe, it is important to keep an open mind and expose yourself to all the information before reaching a conclusion.

The events we have planned are:

Monday and Tuesday at 4PM: The conversation hours will be open forums on the Holocaust. What do you know about the Holocaust? Do you believe it really happened? How bad was it? Do you think the Holocaust was a hoax created to occupy Palestine? How do Tunisians view Hitler? These are some of the types of questions you can ask and discuss.

Wednesday at 4PM: Faiza Abdul Wahab, a Tunisian Muslim woman, will come to the AC to speak about her father, Khaled Abdul Wahab, a Tunisian hero who has been honored by several organizations for saving 24 Jewish Tunisians during the Nazi occupation of Tunisia

Thursday at 4PM: Moshe Gimlan, a Holocaust survivor, will speak to the AC virtually from the USA about his experience during the Holocaust. After speaking about his life, Moshe will take questions and comments from the audience. Moshe is a Jewish-American, originally from Poland.

Friday at 3PM: We will watch the Academy Award winning film, "Schindler's List", based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a Nazi businessman who eventually ended up saving hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust.

This will be a great week, and we have some amazing speakers, so please come and don't miss this opportunity.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Guest Speaker: Charles Hall on English Language in American Culture

• Date: Monday, October 25, 2010
• Time: 16:00
• Topic: English Language in American Culture

Dr. Charles Hall, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Department of English, completed his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Florida in 1983 and joined the faculty at the University of Memphis in 1984. He served as Coordinator of ESL and the M.A. Concentration in TESL/TEFL in the Department of English from 1990-1997. He is being recognized with the CASDRA in the area of Engaged Scholarship.

Dr. Hall has also been recognized at the University of Memphis with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1989 and 2006. He also received the Outstanding Faculty Award from Student Disability Services in 2009. He has received a Senior Fulbright Lecturing Award for the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia twice (1989, 1993).

Charles Hall has done teacher training sponsored by various organizations, such as the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations, in almost 30 countries. Hall has held two Senior Fulbright awards. He has been coordinator of University of West Bohemia's Summer TEFL training courses in the Czech Republic since 1990 and was founder and director of TEFL summer training at Peking University for several years. Hall's newest book is the co-authored American Legal English (2nd ed. University of Michigan Press, 2007). He was the 2005 Chair of the ESP Interest Section for International TESOL.

In his letter of nomination, Dr. Eric Link writes, “For over a decade, Professor Hall has been building communities in the legal English field….he has created legal English curricula, courses, workshops, and training programs in countries such as Armenia, Kosovo, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia, Romania, Albania, Sudan, and Iraq….Dr. Hall is the very model of the professor who is not content to conduct his scholarship behind the closed and narrow confines of an academic building. He has built his career on opening doors to English language literacy in countries around the world.”

Monday, October 11, 2010

Announcing: Tunisian Entrepreneurship Competition

Dear budding Tunisian entrepreneurs of the future,

The AC is organizing a Tunisian Entrepreneurs Competition for those of you who are interested in starting up your own micro-businesses. Interested Tunisians can work alone or in groups. You will work on a specific business idea and will put together a presentation about your idea. This presentation must include a business plan, where you outline your projected revenues, costs, and profits.

Key aspects of this competition:

1) The winning person/team will receive a 500 TD interest-free loan from the AC. You must develop an idea within the constraint of 500 TD.
2) All persons/teams participating must sign up at the AC by October 31.
3) Once persons/teams have signed up to participate, we will visit the offices of ENDA (Tunisia's largest micro-finance bank) where you will be taught in how to create a business plan for your idea.
4) The winning idea will be judged by a panel of experts, likely including someone from ENDA.
5) The competition will take place in late November (exact time and date to be announced later), and it will take place on a Sunday so that everyone can attend, regardless of work or school schedules.

My goal is to give Tunisian entrepreneurs an outlet to use their creativity and ingenuity and to bring their ideas to fruition. We have hosted some speakers at the AC who have talked about risk-taking and entrepreneurship and gotten people fired up about it. Now, it's time to make something happen, rather than just dreaming about it. I hope that we can have as many people participate as possible, and I encourage many of you to take part in this competition.

Please stop by the American Corner to sign up if you are interested and to ask any questions you may have.

Ravi Kaneriya
American Corner Coordinator

Conversation Cafe: Fayrouz (the 2nd try)

Last time we went, Fayrouz was closed, so we will go again on Saturday. Take Rue Ahmed Tlili off of the Monoprix area in Menzah 6 and walk for 10 minutes. Fayrouz is on your right.

When: 2PM, Saturday October 16

Guest Speaker: Michael Cracknell

Michael Cracknell is co-founder of Tunisia's largest microfinance bank, ENDA. He will come speak about microfinance, ENDA's growth, and ENDA's impact on development in Tunisia. I hope you will come. This will be an interesting event!

When: Thursday, October 14, 4PM
Where: American Corner