The 46th Harry Brittain Fellowship
17 May to 24 June 2004

ASFIYA AZIZ (Pakistan)

Unity in Diversity
The 2004 Fellowship was a great experience in many regards. I cannot decide which part of the Fellowship deserves more mentions here.

I could talk about our week long training in Manchester, or the visit to the Northern Ireland to study conflict management and the tedious progress of the peacemaking efforts, our trip to the Big Pit Mining museum in Wales to see the conditions in which men, women and children toiled hard several hundred feet below ground or probably about the bonds of freindship we developed with each other even though all ten of us belong to different socities, countries, continents, even hemispheres.

Perhaps I should talk about how I found a good friend in the Fellow who came from the land of our arch enemy next door. It amuses me to look back now and see how the Pakistani salesman reacted when the two of us walked into a shop and asked for two phone cards - one each for India and Pakistan. "India, Pakistan together?", he had asked in pleasant surprise.

Pakistan (Asfiya) on the left and India (Sreyashi) on the right.

Earlier this week, the ten of us just roared in laughter when a waiter in the restaurant asked us, "Excuse me, how do you guys know each other?" Coming from such diverse backgrounds and having different coloured skins has only prompted us to make conscious efforts to understand each other and come closer. Now I think it wouldn't have been half as much fun and learning if it were not for the cultural diversity amongst us.

And what better place to come together to learn about unity in diversity than in London - the heart of Commonwealth and proabably the most culturally diverse city in the world. The shared exploration of London and other parts of UK helped us grow closer as well as made us appreciate the efforts that the British society is making to integrate ethnic communities into its social fabric.

This fellowship is a prime example of what Commonwealth stands for. Unity in diversity.

ASFIYA AZIZ The 2004 Fellowship was a great experience in many regards. I cannot decide which part of the Fellowship deserves more mentions here...

GEOFF COLLETT The British press is famously as lively as anything it reports on, and the 2004 Harry Brittain Fellows weren't deprived of seeing Fleet Street's finest live up to that reputation...

SREYASHI DASTIDAR The visit to the House of Commons could easily have been a dry affair, fortunately it wasn't, thanks to Ron Davies...

PRIESTLEY HABRU After two hours on the train from London's Paddington station, we finally arrived in Cardiff...

WILTON MAMBA England: the land that can still be recognised by its first ancestors...

SUMITHA MARTIN On our second night in Belfast, I found myself seated between two former terrorists at dinner...

KIRSTY PICKETT In six weeks crammed full of once-in-a-lifetime experiences where expectations have been exceeded on an almost daily basis, it should be easy to jot down a few words about one part of the programme that has touched or inspired us...

FRANCIS PUBAI The Greenwich Appeal - The Harry Brittain Fellows arrived at the Royal Observatory after a refreshing cruise on the River Thames from the London Eye...

CAMERON THOMPSON THE words of Midnight Oil's anthem "The Power and the Passion" keep running through my head...

For further information on the training programme,
contact Jane Rangeley - jane@cpu.org.uk
Tel: +44 20 7583 7733 Fax: +44 20 7583 6868.