Damietta Cross-Cultural Center

 
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Damietta Cross-Cultural Center’s mission is to foster campus-wide, cross-cultural competency in the service of a just world.   At the heart of the Center’s mission is the acknowledgement that we are all members of the human family regardless of our race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, ability and socio-economic status. Within the Christian tradition, there are duties and responsibilities associated with being a member of the human family. The Gospel challenges its adherents not only to love their neighbors but to love their enemies as well.  St. Francis called all whom he met his brother and sister, thereby expressing two convictions. First, we are all related; we are part of one human family. Second, because we are brothers and sisters, we are called to love one another.  It is this profoundly relational dynamic that animates the work of the Damietta Center.

The Damietta Center’s programs are based on the best practice of cultural competency research, student development theory and social justice education. The development of cross- cultural competence focuses on addressing the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of individuals. We provide experiences of the effects of prejudice and inequality in our world, and lead students to become agents of social justice. The Center’s cognitive and affective co-curricular programs, at times in conjunction with in-class learning, foster a campus-wide environment that encourages our students to engage, respect and love all people as brothers and sisters.

 

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The Damietta Center: The legacy of a saint and a sultan

 

Two men sat down for a friendly discussion. They came from different family backgrounds. They were raised in different cultures. They were passionate practitioners of different faiths. At first glance, their meeting may not seem extraordinary, except that the year was 1219; the place was eight miles south of Damietta, a city in northern Egypt, where Christian and Muslim soldiers were busy killing one another in the Fifth Crusade; and the two men conversing were Malik al-Kamil, the Muslim sultan of Egypt, and Francis Bernardone, the Catholic saint from Assisi. [Click here for the full story of the saint and the sultan