Dialogue For Peace
“Dialogue is a way of improving communication. It helps broaden our perspectives and avoid oversimplification. It helps deepen our understanding of each other.”
Delegates described Dialogue as the following:
Dialogue is communication between two or more people from different backgrounds where they accept and respect their each others opinions.
Dialogue opens up opportunities for people to learn.
Dialogue is when groups of people discuss problems and find a resolution.
Dialogue is when you gain new perspectives.
Our Pioneer Facilitator, Safiya, described Dialogue as “a process for creating new understanding and new knowledge and shared learning”. She continued the session with an exercise on perspectives where she showed the Delegates two optical illusion diagrams and asked the group to describe the images they saw. The participants’ answers varied, which according to Safiya is a normal and expected outcome. We are all unique and therefore view the same things in a different light. She highlighted the importance of recognising our differences when initiating Dialogue.
Before Dialogue can commence steps must be taken to ensure that Delegates and Pioneers have a clear idea regarding “Who needs to talk to whom about what and how?” This allows one to identify the various perspectives of an issue, to avoid oversimplification. Safiya also indicated the necessary stages the Delegates will need to consider before, and during their Dialogue For Peace sessions.
This session ended with a Dialogue For Peace role play in which the Delegates were asked to conduct a Dialogue where they played the roles of a host community, refugee community and a facilitator. This was an excellent insight into the various roles within a Dialogue.
Our Tunisian Delegates smiling after a successful day’s work!
