TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Mahmoud ElSayed
The TC Conquering Conflict was the second stage of the KA1 Multi-activity "Building Trust Through Cooperation". “Building Trust Through Cooperation” (BTTC) project aimed at positively affecting the condition of migrants/refugees in the following ways:
- An open discussion on the condition of refugees, engaging against stereotypes and xenophobic sentiments among local populations;
- Peace building through conflict resolution activities, using NFE methods, which aimed to develop awareness and competences of youngsters in the field.
The second TC "Conquering Conflict" main focus was the development of new actions and tools to engage in refugees issues through intercultural dialogue and conflict management.
Participants were 25 youth workers from: Germany, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Georgia, Portugal, Slovakia, Kosovo*UN Resoluton, Italy and Albania.
Methodology used: Non Formal Education workshops.
Examples:
Human Equalities & Possibilities
Small paper with the description of the role was disseminated to the participants. They were asked to empathize with their roles. Various questions about regular life situations were asked and if the answer based on the role given to participant was “Yes”, he/she was asked to go one step forward on. If the answer was “No”, he/she stayed in the same spot.
Question used by the Trainer:
- Can you afford education?
- Do you have a house?
- Do you have money to buy food?
- Can you afford healthcare?
- Do you have money to buy you clothes?
- Can you travel for holidays?
- Can you buy an expensive car?
- Is your opinion important for the society?
- Do people respect you?
- Are you a victim of hate speech?
- Does gender matter in your work?
- When you work, people look at you in the eyes?
- Do you fear for your life?
- Do you feel ashamed of yourself?
- Do you feel satisfied of your life?
After the simulation exercise, the Trainer leaded a debriefing session starting from asking how participants felt during the activity and focusing on what they realized.
Conflict Styles:
Every person has a preferred style to handle conflicts. This tool helped participants understand the 5 conflict management styles through their meanings, pros, cons and examples using a Market where meanings, pros, cons and examples were sold.
Step 1 Participants were divided into 4 small mixed groups.
Step 2 Trainers started with a brief introduction explaining that people handle conflicts differently and that there are 5 different conflict management styles. In addition, each situation might require a different style. Then he explained that the workshop aim to explain the different styles, allowing participants to do a self evaluation which will reveal the style mostly used by each one to handle conflicts, and this is the first step which will help to handle conflicts differently in the future. The Trainer after that named the 5 styles by showing the pre-prepared FLIP CHART and explained that each style has a MEANING, a PRO, a CON and an EXAMPLE and these need to be sold to the trainer by the participants themselves.
Step 3 Four sets were distributed to the 4 small groups of participants (Blue set, Pink set, Green Set, Purple Set) Each set had 6 cards.
Group 1 was the MEANINGS MARKET (blue cards).
Group 2 was the PROS MARKET (pink cards).
Group 3 was the CONS MARKET (green cards).
Group 4 was the EXAMPLES MARKET (purple cards).
Step 4 Trainer then named a conflict style and asked each market to sell him the corresponding meaning, pro, con and example. Trainer corrected at the end the mistakes, and shared the description of the five conflict styles with participants.
After this exercise, participants were given the Conflict Management Styles Quiz to reflect on their personal conflict management style with support from trainer.
A peaceful society
Steps
Participants were divided into small mixed groups
Each group got a flip-chat with written on it “Peaceful Society” and a set of cards (22).
The Trainer asked each group to select 10 cards out of the set of 22 with the statements that represent the needed requirements for a peaceful society.
After this phase each group presented and motivated its choice.
After each presentation the Trainer asked several questions to the members of the groups:
- Which elements of a peaceful society were hardest to let go?
- What does it mean to have peaceful society?
- Are any of the cards hindering a peaceful society?
- Would there be any conflicts in your peaceful society? Would there be any violence? Is there a difference between conflict and violence?
- How would you prevent violence in your ideal peaceful society?
- Is this utopia possible? Are all the final elements you chose true of the country or society you live in? If not, how might we be able to make these elements a reality?
Analysing Conflict
ABC triangle
This triangle model proposes that all conflicts consist of three basic components: attitudes, behaviour and contradictions, which are interdependent. It can be used for conflicts at any level; individuals, groups or communities, and states.
‘Attitudes’ include our presumptions and feelings about the causes of the conflict. These often lie under the surface and are subconscious.
‘Behaviour’ refers to the most visible aspects of a conflict as this represents the actions that conflict parties take; what is said and what is done and physical violence. What is not said or done can also be considered part of the behaviour and can have an equally important effect on the development of a conflict. Physical violence is treated separately from simply ‘what is done’ because it can drastically alter the nature of the conflict and have severe consequences.
‘Contradictions’ mean the specific issues of a disagreement. The issues might be about resources, opinions or existing rules.
Syrian and Gaza conflicts were analysed using this model. Participants were engaged both in the analysis of the conflicts and the debriefing session in which they shared their knowledge and personal opinion/perspective.
Can I come in?
Steps
The Trainer involved participants in a role-play about a group of refugees fleeing their homeland who wish to enter another country in search of safety.
The session started with a brainstorm to find out what participants knew about refugees.
After that the Trainer showed the set-up and explained the scenario: he told participants that they are on the border between countries X and Y. A large number of refugees have arrived. They want to cross into Y. They are hungry, tired and cold and have travelled a long way from their home countries, P; Q and R. Some have a little money and only a few have identification documents or passports. The border officials from country Y have different points of view about the situation. The refugees are desperate, and use several arguments to try to persuade the border officials to let them in."
After explaining the scenario the Trainer divided the participants into three groups: one group to represent the refugees, the second group to represent the border officials in country Y, and the third group to be observers.
The "refugees" and the "border officials" group had the time to work out on their roles and attitudes, while the Trainer advised the observers on what to focus during the simulation and about giving feedback.
After the first round of simulations the two groups switched positions and there was a second round of simulation.
Observers were given few minutes to prepare their feedback.
Debriefing and evaluation
The Trainer started by asking the observers to give general feedback on the role-plays. Then he got comments from the players about how it felt to be a refugee or a border official, and then moved on to a general discussion about the issues and what participants learnt.
Questions used:
- How fair was the treatment of the refugees?
- Refugees have a right to protection under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Were the refugees given their right to protection? Why/why not?
- Should a country have the right to turn refugees away? When? For what reasons?
- Would you turn someone away if you were a border official? What if you knew they faced death in their own country? How are refugees met at the borders of your country? Are any of their human rights are being violated? Which?
- What can and should be done to stop people becoming refugees in the first place?
Results Achieved during the TC:
- Good quality NFE tools created by participants due to the efficiency of the learning and experimenting process they went through during the TC.
- Good quality project drafts created by participants - one Capacity Building in the field of Youth, one KA1Youth multi-activity (2 TCs), one KA1 Youth mobility of youth workers and one possible KA3 Policy Dialogue with stakeholders - due to the efficiency of the learning process they went through during the TC.
- Manual "Conquering Conflict" containing: explanatory sections about conflict management, intercultural dialogue and refugee status as well as the NFE tools created by participants.
I was the co-trainer responsible about.
- Team building Activities
- Organizing materials and arrangements
- Support of simulations and role plays
- Assist in the evaluations and comfy groups.
Yes, The project happened and mahmoud Elsayed was part of the team who executed the project with other two individuals.