12th Annual Friendship Dinner and Peace Awards Ceremony

On Thursday, November 1, 2012, the Peace Islands Institute (PII) hosted the 12^th annual Friendship dinner. The event was held at the Sheraton Hotel in Station Square, Pittsburgh, PA.

The event was emceed by WQED Multimedia Pittsburgh's director of programming and host of QED Cooks Chris Fennimore. Fennimore welcomed the audience with warmth.

After a brief history of the PII, Outreach Coordinator Feyzi Eygoren took the stage and won the admiration of the guests with an idealistic approach to the importance unity and awareness. While keeping things light by integrating a hint of humor, he addressed important points such as the benefits of unity in interfaith and intercultural groups in individual, community, and global perspectives. He saw the dinner as an opportunity to reflect on “where we came from, where we stand and where we are headed to.” Hasan pointed out that Pittsburgh has an opportunity to build intercultural relationships due to its recent increase in diversity. He claimed that instead of operating individually, people of different backgrounds could get together and complete one another. Einstein was mentioned when he hit an important point about avoiding the fear of unknowns. He noted “smart people solve problems, wise people avoid them.” Hasan mentioned that the fear of the unknown could be avoided by getting to know one another. Before finishing up, Hasan set a goal for every guest to arrange to meet at least one person before he or she left the event in order to be proactive and strengthen the bonds within our community.

Another important event was highlighted in the dinner—Pittsburgh, PA, USA and Gaziantep, Turkey became sister cities. A group of US officials, acquainted by PII members from Pittsburgh took a trip to Turkey and learned quite a bit about Turkey and the Turkish culture through an enjoyable experience. Though they were upset by the deaths of the people of their sister city due to a terrorist attack, they were still amazed by the information they were able to acquire about Turkey. Councilmember Bill Peduto mentioned that he was awed by the hospitality and how easy he found it to become friends. He spoke about a family they shared dinner with. He mentioned that, by the end of dinner, they felt like they had been friends for ages. He left the stage with words of praise for the award winners of the night—people who devoted “their time, energy and leadership to the cause of dialogue.”

Afterward, Councilman Peduto presented the guests with an interesting and creative method of becoming aware of the multi-faith community around us. Through a program he called “Pedal, Paddle, Peduto”, he took a group around the city of Pittsburgh through a variety of transportation methods to places of worship such as Churches, Synagogues and Mosques.

The event continued with awards presented to influential people who contributed to shedding light on interfaith intercultural acceptance. The editor of the Pittsburgh Courier Rod Doss was presented with the Media Award. Rich Fitzgerald, a devoted Allegheny county executive was given the Public Service award. Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Linda Lane was presented with the Education Award. Finally, the Diversity Recognition Award went to Dr. Jared L Cohon, President of Carnegie Mellon University.

The event received positive feedback. FBI Special Agent in Charge Douglass Perdue mentioned that he saw the four C’s in the group that night; Confidence, courage, character and especially collaboration. The PII's efforts to gather people of different cultures, ethnicities, and faiths under one roof and break bread in hopes of complete unity earned the respect of not only Purdue, but also many of the guests.

Overall, the dinner provided a diverse environment; guests of various backgrounds broke bread together under one roof. As Mr. Eygoren proposed, the guests took this opportunity as an advantage and interacted with each other.  This event not only highlighted the key to a better today, but also a better tomorrow for this generation and for the generations to come.