Dear Raffi and whoever else is interested First of all I hope your 4 hour os with the Chechen refugee women went well.
Here are some of my notes from the evening with the african ladies, experts with traumatized people (both of whom know os; Marjorie also appreciates curanderismo...) Topics they spoke about: Marjorie (she's coordinator for gender trainings at All Africa Women for Peace (AAWP), Pretoria, South Africa. AAWP is contact and network for women working on conflict resolution): - women saw their chance in reshaping civil society and the liberation movement put racist and sexist behaviour on the same level. 72 women's organisations formed a coalition to speak with one voice and after elections 26% women entered parliament. Thus the new constitution includes a couple of good laws and legislations to support gender mainstreaming. A lot to do still... especially on the political level women are the ones who opt for nonviolent solutions... - post-conflict societies have a huge rise of gender violence.... one in three women (including 11-12 year olds) is a rape victim.. an area worked on is involving men especially so that they deal with their own violence. - how to break the circle of violence, also intergenerationally: story telling as a means of healing as well as art & crafts. Bonny (she is trainer and head of INSERE, a camerun-based organisation for developent cooperation, supporting the peace process in Ruanda): - entrepreneurship - and the problems of implementing behaviours. Programmes for changing behaviours were thought of, including cultural techniques, storytelling, proverbs. Analysis (strength/weaknesses) with women found out: before women can enter economic activities a lot of trauma and conflict needs to be dealt with and managed. They've developed tools... Discussions showed that (financial) aid programmes produced dependency and lack of self organisation. Programmes for economic development (1997) came too early because people had experienced too much trauma. The best help: talking. In the meantime the alternatively developed programme allows the combined work on gender issues, business, conflict management. There is cultural transfer possible with that and quality control exists. A very important issue is building trustful relationships. more on the practical side and examples from both M & B: - (B) no specialists needed, two ears are often enough! People learn to help themselves. - (M) Listening, especially in groups is very useful. Integration of the offenders is an aim, so they are involved as well. - (M) only guideline: keep on telling your story but take it one step further every time. Smallest steps are steps already, like admitting to have experienced/done terrible things - without further details. - (B) draw images (i.e. ship, pot, mountain etc) whatever comes to mind in a group and then select one of your choice to tell your story to, if you can't tell it to a person yet. Later you might want to tell the group what you've told your object of trust... if not, fine too. Minimum time for such a workshop: 5 days. Emotional themes can't be dealt with in 1-2 days... at the end of the days there is so much trust that you can talk about things you could never talk about before... others might want to stop earlier... - (M) has less time, just an evening of trust building: people are asked to paint 'what did you do'/'what did you fail to do' and share the results in small groups. The next day people create a symbol made of clay for what a changed situation could look like. -(B) people in Ruanda are used to sing and drum. In a drum put upside down the traumas get collected. Then people take turns to play that drum in such a way that they express their connected feelings to that trauma.... - (B) every step of the programme is connected to the theme and stage that is worked on. No theorization, no concepts, but collected representatives (i.e. write down words, make paintings, use body language and anything else that appears useful) are the result of the group to that theme in that stage - (B) reestablishing interpersonal trust - most important Q & A - when asked whether this is difficult, Bonny said, working in Ruanda for 3 month is like working in Kamerun for a year ... - (M) identity is the key word, not ideologies. This enables especially women to stand up for themselves - (M) community building suffers a backlash now, for the 'commission of truth' pushed forward too early. They weren't listening to the stories of the victims END of report Since this is only from my notes any statements made should be checked with their origins, Marjorie or Bonny (her first language is french). Here are their contacts: Marjorie: [email protected] Bonny: [email protected] or [email protected] I leave it all uncommented with kind regards, Ilse -- Ilse Debler-Grant Hamburg, Germany mailto: [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Raffi Aftandelian" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 6:27 PM Subject: upcoming OS with Chechen refugee women > Hi listers! > > Thanks for your interest and support in this upcoming 4 hour OS with > Chechen refugee women. The longer I am here, the more I learn to let > go of the way I would like to see things organized and done. > > Birgitt, I think the point you are making about getting permission > from the women to conduct an OS is a very important one, one that gets a little sticky > because Chechen culture (like probably all Caucasian cultures) is one > that highly values guests and goes VERY far (from a Western point > of view) to be hospitable towards them. Your small question had me > check and I clarified that while initially they were polite towards me > as a guest, they later understood my role and what I was offering to > them. > > I recognize that I have lots of learning to do in using OS and in > facilitation in general (much in the quality of presence department), > but my guess is something is working. I think that if the women stay > for the full 4 hours, that might be considered a success. Live and > see! > > best, > raffi > > * > * > ========================================================== > [email protected] > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of [email protected], > Visit: > > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
