Observing to learn

I’ve finally had time to write again! We had our class exam this week so we’ve been studying since this weekend for the test that was on Wednesday. It took me two hours to take the test (some people took 3 ½ hours!), but I finished it and felt good about it. J Wednesday night we celebrated Ian’s birthday so we went out to dinner and then a big group went out later to a local club called Metro. I was really exhausted so I didn’t end up going out, but I hung out with them before they left.

Since we finished out exam we will no longer have any formal class, for the next week we will be “participatory observers” as our professors put it. We are learning by observing. To start off this observation we had four speakers today. All of the speakers were people who are involved in the peace process and in community building. It was really fascinating to hear their stories. One man talked about being in the midst of Bloody Sunday, and one of the younger women talked about how her dad had always searched the car before they went out as a family to look for bombs. He worked at the local prison and was therefore targeted by the IRA for his work. It was amazing to hear what they had all experienced and how that lead to them being involved in the peace process. Two of the speakers work with youth to reduce sectarianism and violence, one worked in interface communities (communities were catholic and protestant neighborhood bump up against each other) and the last speaker worked with the parade commission. There are 3,800 parades in Northern Ireland every year and each parade must be registered and the police and commission must check to make sure the rout and the purpose isn’t too contentious. All of their stories were engaging and fun to listen too. I have yet to meet anyone here who doesn’t have an interesting story to tell.  

The next week is devoted to “participatory observation” and then after that we start our training with the Junction. We will be learning about how to facilitate dialogue and will receive a certificate of completion at the end of our training. I am excited to see what goes into professional facilitation and to get some experience facilitating, it will also look great on my resume! J