Falafel sale a success

Students for Middle East Peace (SMEP) held their final falafel sale on the Quad this past Friday and raised sufficient funds to cover costs for one of their major projects for the semester, the special showing of the acclaimed film Wadjda.  The film will be shown on Monday, April 13, from 5-7 p.m. in VH 1000.

The Saudi Arabian female director of the film, Haifaa al Mansour, has been recognized for her outstanding work depicting the struggles of a young girl who signs on for her school’s Qur’an recitation competition as a way of raising funds to purchase a green bicycle in a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl’s virtue.  The film, the first of its kind to be shot by a woman and done entirely in Saudi Arabia, earned a nomination for Best Foreign Film at the 2014 BAFTA Awards.

SMEP is a Truman student organization comprised primarily of students who have participated in Dr. Appold’s Middle East Study Abroad program. Their major contribution this semester consisted in nine oral presentations given in Truman’s Global Issues Colloquium in January.