LO1, LO6, LO4
This application is considering both conferences overseas, either Mae Sot or Timor Leste.
I’m aware both have to be planned different considering they are addressed to different people, nevertheless, they have to reach the same objective: encourage people to be promoters of peace and change of society, but also their lives and, give tools for the work towards peacebuilding. Timor Leste conference has more presence of local people, and Mae Sot has more of refugees. Something exciting about this is that you could get to know more of a culture, or you could get to know different cultures putting them together. Further, different skills could be needed for each one, therefore, the learning and the focus must be different.
For this reason, to be flexible, creative and perseverant, and I consider myself like this. I don’t have troubles in trying different things, or if something doesn’t work, I may change my way of doing things to get good results. I value and try every time, to create the way I do things, not to follow a pattern, being original or doing some changes in the activities. This is very important if you want to get the attention of people in a conference because, if you are running out of ideas, for example, in a youth meeting or a camp, you should try to create something where all the people can be involved, and they can be interested in doing. With this, arts can help, and If it’s necessary, I would use my ability to sing.
Furthermore, open-mindedness is truly needed. Especially for people in the Mae Sot conference. If you are in a room with a lot of people with different mindsets due to their different backgrounds, cultures, or beliefs that could clash with yours, or maybe they have a different perspective of a situation, you have to be in a position of understanding, why they think as they do; you should go to listen to them, talk about different types of conflicts and, for making them reflect about their situation and world’s situation as well. You should not try to force your beliefs or points of view into others. As a facilitator, I would try to learn from them and be in a position maybe not of total acceptance, but one of patience and understanding.
Besides, something vital would be, being active, being in constant participation and making them participate and show interest, this is very important if you want them to be excited and involved in every activity. When I was in my home country, every year we used to plan a Summer School with my church for local children, and I learned that to make them receptive with things that you say or you want them to do, you have to show a great interest in what you are doing, so energy is transmitted to everyone. In this also plays a very important role, trying to establish or transmit confidence, sense equality between all, and therefore being empathic; these things are much more important if you want to create a connection with people of the same age as you. Showing the strengths and weaknesses when you have to, making feel everyone else good and equally treated, can lead to the right image or perception of the person that is facilitating; the participants can identify themselves easily with the facilitator. For me, this is more personal, because usually, I like to treat everyone else in the same way I want to be treated, I particularly don’t like when people are indifferent or ignores you, we all deserve to be heard.
The last thing that I want to mention is that teamwork is how every conference is successful. If there’s not teamwork, all the work lies in a few people, errors or misunderstandings can easily happen. I enjoy doing teamwork, even if I like to do things on my own, that’s why I tried to listen to every idea of the members of the group; you can do many things in less time rather than working and doing it by yourself, and better and a lot of ideas can come up from a lot of people. I value the responsibility that a person assumes when it is in a group.
Almost concluding with my application, I want to say, in my opinion, although the reasons and the abilities we want to bring to the conferences may seem similar sometimes, this experience, by living it, can change the idea with which it started and can develop new learning and different in each of us, by this I mean We can get more than we would have expected. Therefore, from my point of view, in the conferences, you put our abilities, knowledge, understanding and tools for share with others, and the others share with us as well.
