What’s Friendship Week?

The Iranian Children’s Friendship Week in Other Countries

Introduction

The Friendship Week is held to establish some cultural relations with the Iranian people residing abroad, to raise the new emigrated Iranian generation’s awareness of their own country’s history and culture, and to strengthen cultural ties with those countries where more Iranians are settled down or where there are more Persian speakers.

This program has been arranged through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children & Young Adults (Kanoon) and the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, and these organizations conduct the Friendship Week applying their own facilities and cooperating with the Iranian cultural and political attaches in other countries.

The major activities in the program include presenting and offering the miscellaneous cultural/artistic products and activities of Kanoon by the Kanoon delegates in three sections: exhibitions, creative workshops and screening films and plays.

The Friendship Week has been held in Bangladesh, South Africa, Greece, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, England, Tajikistan, Thailand, Armenia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Syria, Bulgaria, Turkmenistan, Kenya and Denmark since 2002.

The Goals

• 1. Promoting peace, civilizations dialogue, and cultural relations among the countries.
• 2. Raising children’s, young adults’ and youth’s awareness of the Iranian and Islamic culture and civilization all around the world and reciprocally recognizing their cultures and civilizations.
• 3. Furthering and fostering sympathy and empathy among all the children and young adults around the world in various cultural and artistic arenas.
• 4. Encouraging cooperation and partnership among children, young adults and youths in a variety of cultural and artistic arenas.
• 5. Boosting Iranians’ direct access and relations with the activities which are performed for or by the children, young adults and youths, especially in the foreign countries.
• 6. Fulfilling the audience’s cultural and artistic demands through presenting the desired products and the adequate services.
• 7. Removing the false images and wrong viewpoints caused by wrong propagandas towards the children’s and young adults’ cultural and artistic circumstances from among Iranian and non-Iranian children and young adults whether in Iran or in foreign countries, and actualizing the real image of their cultural and artistic developments.

Audience

• Iranian and non-Iranian children and young adults;
• Iranians residing in the foreign countries;
• Similar Iranian and non-Iranian children’s and young adults’ cultural-artistic centers and organizations;
• Children’s and young adults’ cultural/artistic trainers and teachers;
• Culture/art students and professors;
• All those involved and active in miscellaneous Iranian and non-Iranian culture and art.

Intended Programs and Activities

These programs and activities could be adopted in accordance with the dispatched units’ and the foreign parties’ suggestions as well as the target countries’ particulars, yet the general structure of the programs are as follows:

1. Exhibitions:

• Kanoon’s book fair (including illustrated books and books appropriate for every country, internationally reward-winning books, Kanoon’s book samples whose copy rights have been sold out to other countries, book samples whose copy rights have been bought by Kanoon, etc.)
• Kanoon’s entertainment and educational games
• Kanoon members’ painting gallery
• Kanoon’s books’ illustration gallery along with the illustrated book
• Kanoon’s photo gallery (including photos by children and young adults, photos taken from children and young adults, photos on cultural and ceremonial customs, etc.)

2. Workshops:

• Tiling workshops, framework making (for mirrors) which should be done by children themselves without any pre-planned design.
• Painting workshops (on the topics such as: World’s children and I, World children’s Friendship, etc.)
• Printing workshops (printing on the glass and cloth)
• Doll-creation workshops (including creating Mobarak dolls and creating dolls from ping-pong balls)
• Mask-creation workshops (creating masks out of ones’ own faces and painting them)
• Creative play workshops (through some topics suggested by the trainers and enacting children)
• Calligraphy workshops (in case suggested by the dispatched group)
• Collage workshops (making flags and handcrafts inspired by the fruits, leaves, roots, sticks, buttons, spins, paper, etc.)
• Puppet-show workshops (Children will be able to perform a play by their own handmade puppets)
• Traditional designs workshops (getting acquainted with the traditional Iranian designs and patterns)
• Pottery workshops (learning various techniques in pottery)

3. Presentations and Performances

• Kanoon’s films’ screen presentation
• Playing the Kanoon activities CD’s and children’s folk songs in the exhibitions
• Jamshid Throne CD presentation

Play performance in case of mutual agreement on the costs