Day 3 - Not Enough Time

Today, the second day of Constructive Engagement of Conflict, was another interesting, though (again) very tiring day. Participants started off talking about gender stereotypes, which (at times) could really be something to laugh about. Nonetheless, the workshops kept their focus due to great contributions of the participants. This was closely followed by the workshop "national stereotypes", where some of the facilitators made the group play a game. This game was meant to show people how many stereotypes they actually have about other cultures. Everyone in the group got a sticker put on their head which said, for example, "american man", the person  wearing this sticker did not know what it said, through interactions with the other group members (and how they acted towards them) they had to guess from what country they were. This resulted in a sudden realisation about the amount of stereotypes they actually know, and also showed them that everyone has many stereotypes.

Very interesting to see was that none of the workshops ended on time, there were such fiery discussions that there was not an end to make on the workshops. It was comparable to lighting a fuse, once lit you could not put it out. All the facilitators were in a desperate need of time.

After stereotypes it was violence that would be discussed. What is violence? Do you know? Have you ever tried to define it? Well we tried! And some groups had incredible discussions, whereas other facilitators showed their group different theories of violence. The idea was to give people more insights into the depths of violence, which were, for most, mind broadening. Ask yourself, how would you define violence? Is it just physical, or is there more to it?

This was, finally, followed by a break of half an hour. People swam, played games, talked, discussed etcetera; there is only one word which, for me, correctly describes this situation: "gezellig" (a Dutch word describing a feeling you get in a certain atmosphere, translation can be: good, nice and cosy). 

After the break there was a workshop where people had to tell about people who had broadened their world perspective. In my case a girl from Nigeria at my school. This once we had a discussions concerning voluntary work and the implementation of democracy in developing countries. Often these two go together as a lot of support comes from Western countries, which are, democratic. I was completely convinced that democracy was the way, and that the help which came from our countries was the right thing to do. She showed me that this is very black and white, and that it isn't as simple as that, especially not in the case of Nigeria! A lot of interesting stories were shared, and I learned a lot from what the participants had to say!

And then LUNCH! All of us had gotten quite hungry by that time, so it came just in time.

After lunch a skit was preformed, which was very funny as the facilitators pretended to be humans from the stone age fighting over a cookie. This to show different kinds of outcomes of conflicts (win/win, win/lose, lose/lose). Simple, funny and effective!

After that the power of apologies was explained. It was impressive, that such a simple thing could have such an impact. Yes, the people knew what we were saying, but were not aware of it. They recognised what we were telling them, but had never thought of it that way before. And, of course, it is quite natural to apologies when you did something wrong, but what are the consequences if you don't, or what is the effect of the actual apology? That is stuff really worth thinking about!

With all the workshops one theme did keep cropping up, TIME, no-one had enough time to really finish what they wanted to. This was mainly due to great participators who contributed a lot, they made our (the facilitators') life incredibly hard as we had to sometimes stop discussions due to lack of time; which I find an outright shame as they were very valuable.

Although I still struggled with my spanish, I still had an amazing day! Thank you all who contributed to that!

To be continued!

- Hans van Deursen (AC '10-'12) - The Netherlands