We live in a world where religion has flourished over the years. This impacts on the way people see things, what is considered good in one religion might not be considered the same in another religion. In some parts of the world, there are social and political issues around religion, whilst religion is supposed to be all about peace. Due to this, my group specifically chose to focus on religion and how it may or may not influence conflict. Razin, Keira, Bruce and I, each grew up believing in different religions. All of the religions that are taught reflects on who we are as a person and our commitment to our communities. Beforehand, we knew the general information about the effect of religion towards war and this intrigued us to research deeper. We decided to expand our opportunities and continue to research about this to value the importance of religious roles in society and have a better understanding of religions presence in the world in order to maintain peace.
Through the ups and downs that we went through as a group, I believe that we are successful in this project and have completed each other. Initially, our group only consists of Razin, Bruce and I, which was chosen at random. The main problem we encountered was when we were going to go out to do our survey. Bruce wasn’t allowed to go out and do the survey due to the sensitivity of the topic and the fact that his parents didn’t think we should go to the mall and do a survey because we might get kicked out. As the leader of the group, I knew the importance of the survey for the primary research, therefore I explained how I have previously gone to do the survey and it went well. As a last minute addition to our outcome, we decided to do a presentation in front of the whole school regarding our topic. Keira didn't want to participate in giving a presentation to the whole school, as she is not confident speaking in front of large groups.
The location that we decided to survey people was Lotte Shopping Avenue . I mainly worked on the primary research. Just one day after I send the survey, I received 100 replies. Bruce and Razin worked on the secondary research. Razin read ‘​The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the world Order’​, written by Henry Kissinger. Bruce did a great job in looking at websites that are important. Keira worked on the posters that were posted around the school. As the leader, I made sure that all the work we did got done well and neatly and were submitted on time. Everyone took apart in everything, even though we each have things that we mainly work on. By far, we have done really well and scored really high on all the assignments given. However, I believe there is always room for improvements. I think we can work on the going out part, to do the primary research, amongst other things.
For us, choosing this topic was not as hard for us, as we looked at it as a very important and touching subject that needed to be dug deeper. Religion to most people is indeed a sensitive topic due to the fact that it has caused many wars and conflicts in the past, and is still going on in the present day. If I got to do this again, I would have better time coordination, as it would have helped in making this a better project. Overall, in the beginning we miscommunicated, if we did this again, it wouldn't happen. We struggled in the making of outcomes, as we want to make sure its realistic and doable. Having a hard time making the outcome pulled us back a few steps, resulting to a harder time to research for both primary and secondary research. Despite the bickering and disagreements that we had as group, we were quite efficient when it comes to getting something done on the right time. In some areas, we focused more than other, groups.
As the leader of the group, it was a big responsibility for me to make sure we had done our research well, and make sure it is reliable. Most of the speaking, whether it is in front of the class, or asking strangers mostly was done by me, since a few of my group members does not have the courage to do so. Our outcomes were to spread religious tolerance, so that people would understand and appreciate different aspects from different perspectives. Also, we were going to influencing religion extremists, and exchange thoughts and opinions regarding religion tolerance, Lastly, we are going to be educating people that religion teaches us all about good deeds and peace, not conflict. We did achieve our outcome since we spread awareness of religion tolerance in Sampoerna Academy. However we could’ve done a better job in spreading awareness of religion tolerance even more widely and outside of school.
This has been such an interesting project to do, and if I was asked asked to do it again, I would do it with the same group. We each have so many potential that wasn't used to its best ability. I believe we did achieve our outcome because we educated others, but we could’ve done a better job if we had better time management, communication, and making sure that we have achieved our outcome; this would've been a better project. Overall, we spread religious tolerance, and educated the students from our school that religion teaches us all about good deeds and peace, not conflict. The world consists of several religions, thus leading to people with different beliefs, we all have to learn to appreciate and understand each others differences, in order to live harmoniously. If all differences are set aside and the society starts to understand each other, we can all look forward to live in a world, united as one.