“If people aren’t talking about something, I don’t expect them to change it,” Saeed Abu Alhassan said simply. His words outline the basic idea behind his brainchild Shams Table — a dinner and dialogue night that prides itself on being a safe space for open expression.

Every other week since 2016, dozens of near strangers gather at the Shams Community house in the Jabal Amman neighborhood of the Jordanian capital. The mixture of locals and expats come for the food — a consistent, army-sized feast of vegetarian-friendly Arabic dishes — but stay for the facilitated roundtable. 

Discussions range from hard-hitting topics like mental health, sexual expression or religion to current events like the global #MeToo movement, climate change or happenings in the local community. The point is to talk about things that affect all in society but, for some reason, aren’t easily talked about publicly. 

“People gather every day and they are talking about shit. Just switch that, place a topic on it,” Abu Alhassan, 31, said laughing. This is the first layer of the Shams Table concept: raising awareness.