Conflict!! Solution? — Training Course Erasmus+
Between 28 of August and 6 of September I participated in another Erasmus+ project in Kolín, Czech Republic. The topic was conflict management in our lives or society in a macro level.
All of us during our lives have to deal with conflict no matter how much we try to avoid it. In the past being in some NGOs had to deal with some conflicts and even now I have been struggling with conflict within myself so it was a clear opportunity to learn how to deal with this problematic. Nevertheless it was a huge success.
So what stood out the most?
Homayoon
Some people appear in your lives for a reason. And Homayoon was to understand that there can always be something good out of bad moments. Homayoon is an Afghan refugee that fled from his country with his family seeking safety from war, he lives in Hamburg, Germany and he was one of the three representatives of Germany.
I never had the opportunity until there to meet a person from Afghanistan so I was super curious to talk with him.
Frequently I seek some generic information like food, words or culture. But with Homayoon I had one of the most impressive conversations till today. We talked about the situation in Middle East, the real problem, oil and what the Afghans but most importantly what he think about it. Even thought I had some bad thoughts about media prior to that conversation that gave me clear confirmation that media show a side of things that is not necessarily true to our eyes.
On a break time I was discussing with Carlos, a college from Portugal, about our informal talks and Carlos told me that Homayoon being on the conditions that he faced …
Just wanted to get back to his country and build a school there.
So simple and yet it is so powerful. Helping others and looking for the best on the community should be always the number one target, but as Harrison Ford said some days ago.
We are facing what is quickly becoming the greatest moral crisis of our time.
And this can be applied not only in environment but generic values that society is starting to lack.
The simulation game.
Highest point of the exchange.
The facilitators analyzed us for four days and in this exercise gave us roles that they felt it would be the best for us in order to develop skills, maturity and some critical thinking from being put on a different angle.
As an example a person that clearly wants to participate more and has no given chance to do it. On this case those persons had the most important/active roles being more responsible towards the goal.
Before I enter into detail let me summarize the concept. There was town with two major problems — health and safety.
In the first case there was a water tower that was causing problems in two districts making people sick all the time. In another hand there was not a lot of jobs in that town and as a consequence there was a lot of criminality.
Solutions, we had to pick one of the two.
Rebuilding the water tower or Building a youth center to promote activities and jobs to fight the criminality.
It was given to me a neutral position with middle influence but with some dilemma on the traits of my character. A daughter that was going to kindergarten on a district with contaminated water on the next year or fighting again people that robbed recently my bar.
There were a few more characteristics but I focused mainly in one, creating chaos.
It was said that I lost the election to the atual mayor so I could try and force a big dispute between the two solutions to reach no conclusion.
I focused on that to replicate situations where I had to deal the same and to understand what goes through the mind of those aggressors in real life.
I wasn’t succeeded but learned a lot.
Water tower was the chosen project.
It was also impressive to check back some historical facts about conflict that were solved using non violent methods on a macro level. Each group had to detail one big conflict that changed history and summarize for the others. Gandhi, Apartheid and Danish resistance movement were a few examples to learn. On the previous day we had a guest talking about the Velvet Revolution which happened in Czech Republic.
In the end it was a huge success for the group and I felt it was a incredible process of learning in my life that it will endure forever.
See you soon in more adventures, I miss you all.
