Prof. Rami Hamdallah, the University's President, received in his office at the Old Campus, a group of the participants and organizers of the Leadership Training Institute 2009 which is organized as a cooperation venture between An-Najah National University and Research Journalism Initiative (RJI).

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Saed Abu Hijleh, the Academic Coordinator of the RJI program in Palestine and a Lecturer at the Department of Geography, thanked President Hamdallah for this special meeting in order to give participants the opportunity to talk about the RJI program, its goals and prospective.

On his turn, Mr. Mark Turner, the International Director of RJI in Nablus, briefed President Hamdallah on the program that presents opportunities for academic cooperation on campus through workshops, videoconferences and other activities.  He also talked about the cooperation between the RJI and An-Najah National University in creating capacity-building opportunities for the University's students on learning how to communicate in a cross-cultural environment and international students as well.

In his welcoming remarks, Prof. Hamdallah highly emphasized  the importance of such programs and the need to expand them to include as many students as possible and introduce them more to the reality of the situation in Palestine.  The University's President also pointed out the readiness of the University to support initiatives seeking to promote intercultural cooperation. He wished participants all success on their endeavors to promote understanding and dialogue.

Dr. Beth Harris, one of the international participants, talked about the reaction of students of universities and schools outside Palestine, who were involved in the RJI activities with other academic institutions.  At the end of the meeting, Mr. Abu Hijleh and Mr. Turner thanked President Hamdallah for the his efforts in providing all support to facilitate the activities of the RJI.  They also presented all thanks to the different Departments and Academics of the University for their participation in the program.  It is to be mentioned that the LTI program concludes this week after a series of activities of lectures, workshops and sites visits around the West Bank.