NEW YORK | More than 60 United States Seeds took part in dialogue facilitation trainings in October and November. The trainings, held in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, focused on deepening their understanding of the dialogue process and equipping them with skills to better address the unique challenges facing their schools and communities.
“I have wanted to start a Global Citizens Club at my school to have dialogue about the critical issues we face, but I was afraid,” said one Seed who took part in a training in Los Angeles. “This workshop gave me the tools and the confidence I need to get started.”
On October 6-7, the Center for Contextual Change in Chicago hosted the first dialogue seminar of the program year for nine Seeds. Chicago Seeds new to the trainings learned what dialogue is, why it’s so foundational to productive conversations, and how to facilitate it. Returning participants got to put those tools to use by facilitating an actual session.
“The empathy other Seeds exhibited was extremely heartening,” said Reggie Miller, Seeds of Peace’s Director of U.S. Programs.
Exactly three weeks later, on October 27, over two dozen Seeds from the past two Camp years came together from as far away as Boston and Pennsylvania to attend a dialogue training at StreetSquash Harlem in New York City.
One Seed admitted he once thought all it took to be a good dialogue facilitator was to be smart and interested. But after hearing all of the theories, frameworks, skills, and strategies that go into the process, he realized how much effort it really takes.
He said he was inspired to practice his new skills as much as he can so he can create a dialogue group back home.
He wasn’t the only person who changed over the course of the training. At the start of it, multiple Seeds admitted they were anxious about not having the skills, knowledge, or talent to facilitate dialogue effectively. By the end of the training, they felt ready to take on dialogue themselves—which they did, in a session they co-facilitated with their peers.
On November 3-4, 27 Seeds from the past two years of Camp took part in a dialogue facilitation training at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. This time, Seed parents and Seeds of Peace Educators attended a separate workshop sessions so they too could learn more about the rationale, tools and processes that underlie our method of dialogue.
One parent even took a photo of a chart created during the session, which listed various ways to transform conflict, to hang in her home.
