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.

good evening everyone im mohammed daher from lebanon. Beofre I came to the uk i though i would have problems with everyone. I couldnt imagine myself in all the places that i went to and all the people that i met. I was in a restaurant one day having my lunch and there was a woman on the same table who asked me to watch her baby for 10 minutes, i know thats boring to be a baby sitter but thats not the point. My arabic features are obvious, and before i came here i thought the people, when they will see us, would run away saying terrorist or something like that, because thats what i was asked about in my visa application. What i want to say is that we must stop the previous judgments and let the kind people of wales, scotland, london, lebanon and the world be onscreen. Thank you.

Mohammad Daher

5 AM again.. We’ve been used to wake up early and to do many things, to accept many things as well… We must to be used now to accept that new person who lives inside us… A person painted by the offscreen’s fingers , strong, kind, smart, who can communicate easiely with others. So 5 AM we leaved wales, and we went to Eton college, we walked into the first classroom in the world ( as a student and a teenager, we know that it’s a place that can make you happier).. No sincerely it was an interresting place, a strong building, built in 1400, and it stills strong… What I realy can’t forget the painting in the chapple..It was made by fn it our artists, and coverred with white for hundreds of years , and they destruct part of it ( the men’s side), and they discovered the rest of it later… It will maybe be my last words, so i want to say goodbye to the UK peopole, i know that I will leave but a part of my heart will stay here with all the kind peopole of Scotland, London, Wales… My heart will stay here because i trust you all.. A part of my soul will be with Jamie, Stephen, Barney, Anu, Aya, Roberts, Janna… ( My family in the UK)… I will take with me that new person that I gain……..
Thank you all.

Mohammad Daher

Wales… The town of books … It was the most interresting place after Scotland, because I’m realy interrested in Litterature, and I was watching for the first time that I will touch the english litterature.. The most important thing was the time that we spend at the globe center, we met there 8 british students and we worked together on making covers for our sketch books, the point that it was important because it was an other way to know more about the UK… We saw the Uk in their eyes, and they saw it in ours, and the same for the middle east…

And finaly i’d like to thanks MRS Ania…. I love your collage.

Living in a busy city and always meeting people, make us forget the real beautiful life in nature. The visit to Hye on Wye made us realize that we need more than money and people, and discover more about who are we and what we want from life. We climbed the Black Hills, where we had the opportunity to see an incredible scene for Wales from the top. After that we went on a boat trip, which I never done before, although we have plenty of wide and fantastic rivers in Lebanon. It was little boring in the beginning but it turned to be more exciting when it became a competition between us, the girls, and the guys. Although we missed up we went through real funny accidents where some fell down and other were stuck between stones. This trip let me figure out how much we can benefit from surrounding nature and enjoy it without destroying it.