For the past several years, the
Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Ottawa has sponsored the
Bahá'í Award for the Study of Peace and Conflict at Saint Paul
University. This award is granted on an annual basis to a deserving full-time student entering their second
year in the Master of Arts program in Conflict Studies at St. Paul’s.
The Award recognizes academic excellence and a personal and
professional commitment to understanding the root causes of conflict and the
promotion of non-violent conflict resolution.
This year, Husam Alsousi was chosen to receive this award for his
thesis research entitled “Diverging Perceptions of Palestinian Youth
for the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.” Mr. Alsousi traveled to
Palestine to conduct his research with groups of university aged
Palestinian Youth
in two different areas. He presented each group with the open ended
question “What is the Palestinian- Israeli conflict?” and from this
question gathered a great amount of information on the opinions of
young people both on this question and also on political affiliation.
The Award was presented by Mr. Fu’ad Foroughi on behalf of the
Spiritual Assembly on Thursday, February 27 at a noon hour seminar.
Following the award presentation, Mr. Alsousi presented his research
and responded to questions.