As an international student from Syria when I first came to Stetson in the spring of 2020, I faced some hard times fitting in the American society as many international students do. I and a group of my Arab friends: Chama, Saif, Christa, and Noureen noticed that whenever we meet a new person, they would ask about our countries, cultures, and customs and people are curious about more Arab, North African, and Middle Eastern cultures. As we knew more people, we wanted to have a platform that represents our identity and let more people be aware of our culture. So, we thought about starting the Arab Student Organization at Stetson.
At the beginning of fall 2020, the organization advisor, Manal Ammagui, supported us to start a new student organization that will represent the Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Cultures at Stetson.
Anyone can be a part of the Arab Student Organization (ASO,) regardless of their nationality or ethnicity. We love curious people as our mission is to share Arab culture with everyone and offer them an authentic look into the rich Arab culture that the media misrepresent sometimes.
We will do that through fun events and activities like movie nights, cultural celebrations, and food rushes. Moreover, ASO will be a platform for Arab students to express their cultural identity and connect with other fellow Arab students to help them feel that they do belong at Stetson and that their cultural belonging is celebrated. You can join ASO by contacting us through email or by requesting to join through the Engage platform: https://stetson.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/aso.
The organization has been official for less than a week now and we have been receiving amazing feedback and a lot of people are excited to be at our events and enjoy the good food and learn more about our culture. We would love to have you at (ASO.)
If you have any questions you can reach out to any of these individuals. Each and everyone played a part in making this student organization a reality for all of Stetson’s community.
Yahia Adla, Biology/Pre-medicine major, 2023′. Saif Mostafa, CS/Economics major, 2023’Noureen Saeed, International Business/Entrepreneurship major, 2024′ Christa Assi, International Studies major, 2024’ Chama Bouoad Fulbright FLTA Scholar 2020-2021.
Written by Yahia Adla ‘23