o outstanding
f fast
f funky
s searching
c crazy
r realistic
e early
e equal
n no sleep

… offscreen

two weeks of exploring .. making art… taking photos and simply living the moment,
it was enough time for us to build a big strong and loving family

lots of ideas came to our minds .. many thoughts and random feelings .. it was all about england .. scotland.. wales .. sometimes just about who we are and what we are doing here and what we have learnt.

in front of your eyes.. to see… near to your hands.. to touch … very clear to your ear.. to hear ..

this result .. our offscreen celebration ..

art gallery .. films … photos..

you are all welcome to hear , feel and see
the story of eight middle east students on the journey of a lifetime.

In fact ,i came here with little knowledge about the British society in general and muslims in particular but what i have seen here was embarrassing,astonishing and worth respect .the british citizens are given their full rights to follow their chosen religion and to practice their rites without fear . No difference is there between any one, all are equal. the matter of religion is left between the citizen and his god. during my visit to the Islamic schools in manchester, i found that the school administration can choose their syllabus freely without any interference . the girls can wear (higab) if they would like to . the holy Qu’ran can be taught and recited by all . they can tell their prayers at their times without any excuse.
all of these make me happy that i chose your literature and your language as the branch of my study , i learned to sympathize with the poor from CHARLES DICKENS, to love all and love nature and keep it from william wordsworth. To describe the society very carefully from Jane Austin . To be imaginative and innovative from William Shakespeare . To be friendly, kindly, helpful co-operative and tolerant from everyone of you. What i can say as a conclusion is that ….your country really deserve to be “THE GREAT BRITAIN’ … thanks a lot…………………………….

Hi everybody im abir awad from lebanon 16 years all my pleasure to meet you all here today. Im going to talk to you about politics and protests. Some people say that a teenager talking about politics is some how silly or weird by believe me most teenagers i know are interested in politics but the only problem is that they dont have the chance to express their points of view. politics controls our lives ad our societies and being from lebanon politics has a personal effect on my life. Offscreen gave me the opportunity to deal more with politics especially when we met alan duncan a conservative member of parliament. It was interesting to meet him, i feel i benefited a lot by meeting him there were two points specifically that had an impact on me. Firstly he shared with me and everybody that was there a british point of view the oppositions point of view which was some how new for me, on topics i was concerned with with Lebanon and other countries the Middle East. For example when I asked him about the war in Iraq and he had a differnet idea, that they were somehow against whats going on there right now. the second thing is that I learnt to be more diplomatic in my opinions, which, actually, im not used to doing.
And now Brian, who i met outside parliament whos been protesting there since the beginning of the iraq war - can you imagine that?. Hes an interesting character to say the least, i had mixed feelings about brian. On the one hand i respect and admire his strength and what he stands for. But on the other hand, he told us his family abandoned him and he doesnt see his children, so i think he could do it in a way so he can keep his family and be more productive.

Someone told me once you cant have peace unless you have justice, so can never have peace because you will never have justice.. thats why I guess brian is going to stay there a long time.

But with respect to us, middle east teenagers believe we can have peace, we want peace, so we are asking you, please pave us the way.

Hi everybody, Selaam Alaykum, first i want to introduce myself, Mohammed Al Kabbi with you from United Arab Emarites. I was being the official photographer student in this trip. I like my job. I begin my photography life in UK, everybody thinks when he bys his camera he begins his photography life in his country but maybe i am different. I want to say about photography; it is my life and the camera is my third eye. i want to show you my favorite ten pictures. Lets go Stephen!

Yah. So im Bashayer from kingdom of Bahrain, 17 years old. Working with Barney on filming and editing was such a great thing to do, some of them technical and some of them social. Technical I learnt how to use some professional programmes and editing. Social, now i not shy to talk to strangers and make interviews and i can listen to the people when they talk and just listen. I did one film editing interviewing and filming i think this is a good thing that will make me proud of and a good thing to talk about when I am home. I think that viedos and filming is such a good thing to do to communicate with people as some people prefer watching something. You can put your emotions into it, the songs you chose, the things that you cant do with other things.

goodevening everyone i am Jawahir from the Sultanate of Oman. I think words can not express my feelings. I had a wonderful time with these people,. i felt i was with my family in my country. I would like to tell you about the feeling of being a Muslim in the UK. Actually, when i first cam here i thought walking in uk streets with my hijab and abaya would be a disaster but i found a different thing. the british people were very friendly to me they were looking at me and would smile. that made me confident and feel happy. And i felt really i was in my own country.

I had a lot of opportunities to talk about Islam here, in cathedrals and schools and we even talked about religion in our circles of love. we have been told we are funky muslim girls, and I love that. When we were in the cathedral we have met the priest and our curiosity lead us to ask a lot of questions. we learnt a lot about christianity and Judaism, we found that they are actually similar links between them. When we were in the islamic school, that picture shows a piece on the window, this mosque was a church before and they kept the peice behind it because the message is similar to islamc because it isnt against Islam. I like this link between the two religions.

actually when we were in the islamic higgh schools for girls in london we met wonderful girls, they were so confident and so strong, and such a strong faith. I felt like I was one of them.

Finally I would liek to thank the offscreen team. I would liek to thank stephen for choosing me for this expedition. he told me that he chose me for my big smile before the art. i would like to thank barney for taking films, jamie for supporting us all the time, Aya jenna and Tahira for cooking food and being there all the time and finally i would liek to thank my partners from oman, bahrain, lebanon, emarates and Egypt and of course the offscreen team.

Its been a pleasure to stand up here and speak to you. Its really hard for me but i would like to speak about the offscreen family, because for me, its been the best part of the whole expedition. when i first won the competition i was so nervous and worried, i had so many thoughts because im not the kind of person who can get along with people so easy especially is i have never met them before. well, when i first met each one of the team i had some thoughts; ‘are they friendly’, ‘he looks a bit shy, ’she dresses weird’, but then i learnt something which is really important.. never judge people unless by the way they treat you. and i have to say i dont care who you are where are you from or what you did just as long as you care about me. there are some words inside my soul, and these have been the ones ive tried to write over and over again but still i have no words to describe how wonderful they are and how they treated me. just like.. they made me feel i belonged to them. the whole expedition with the whole team made me think how wonderful it is to communicate with people from different ages and its hard to say goodbye. It seems like just yesterday i met them and i dont feel ive had enough of them. Everyone of them have been like a friend, like a mother, a father, a brother and a sister and i knew deeply inside of me, you all, Stephen, jamie, barney, roberet, aya, jenna, anu, and tahira, mrs thuraya, bashayer, mr hamid, abir, marwa, azooz, eiman, mohammed, jawahir, abdullah, mohammed dahir you are all my family. you all made my journey much more easier for me. and before 13 days i was just a girl who sadly left her family and came to the uk but now you are looking at a woman, a woman who has so many interests in such things i never thought i would be interested in and its all because of you. I have benefited from all these personalities and advice which i was given which makes me look forward to my future. And i dont want to say good bye but i will say, see you soon, and we will be a family forever. And last but not least, im sorry if i ever hurt anyone of you and thank you, i was so lucky to have this opportunity, creating and working and coorperating with you. I have to say. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.