UWC Peace Conference

On the 10th of September 2017, the IFP team of East set off to Dover to engage in a peace conference that taught us a lot about the foundations of IFP and why it is so important that we do this. Although I only arrived halfway into the conference, the short amount of time still allowed me to to learn a lot and helped me reflect on why I am really a part of this activity. Throughout the day, both East and Dover was combined and split into 4 groups that rotated between 4 different rooms, each focusing on a different aspect of conflict; Identity, Media, Discrimination and Violence. Unfortunately I missed Identity and Violence but my experience in Media and Discrimination really allowed me to get a good understanding of the initiative that we are taking in IFP. Upon getting to Media, we played a few ice breakers to get to know each other a little better. This allowed for both East and Dover students to get to know one another. Although it may seem like a trivial part of the conference, the ice breakers were extremely important in building a foundation with the Dover students. These students are who we will be spending a majority of the time facilitating conferences one our training is complete and it is quite necessary to get to know them and build a relationship with them. After the ice breakers we were taught about how when conflict is presented in media, it is often false or biased information. This information along with the discussion allowed us to understand the impact false news can have on the readers of news. Reading these articles, forces the readers to make a false assumption about the situation in the conflict zone and affect thought process. Based on the news people take a stance and if it is biased, they do so uninformed about both parties involved. This made me feel as though both parties were not receiving an equal voice in the conflict that they are equally involved in. It also made me sympathise with those not being able to express their perspective no matter what it may be. This gave me an understanding of how important it is for us at IFP to engage in conferences at the end of the year with youth in conflict zones to understand their perspectives to achieve peace in the best way possible. Discrimination was the final session for the day. There were two activities that made a significant impact on me during the session. In the first one we were split into 4 groups all focusing on a different aspect of discrimination. For example there was LGBTQ, racism, sexism etc. My group was focussing on racism. Usually when I think of racism, I associate it with violent or verbally abusive acts. But during the activity, we looked at a slideshow with each slide representing a different country and were asked to think of racist things that have been said to people of that nation. Most things said were stereotypes. For example, “India is always dirty” or “Chinese people are always good at maths” or “All Muslims are terrorists”. These statements are often used as a joke but are actually extremely racist. This made me realise how some things that we say as jokes in our everyday life are actually quite harmful and instil a false hope about cultures in people’s brains without our realising it. Just by saying it we begin to believe that is true and it is a mindset we as a human race need to get rid of. It made me quite surprised and angry realising how harmful humans are capable of being. The second activity that made an impact on me involved the whole group to stand in a line holding hands with out eyes closed. A series of statements about out ethnicity and culture were read out like “I have felt safe walking alone in the night” or “I am not embarrassed of my parent’s jobs” and we stepped forward for yes and backwards for no. All the statements were positive so a step back would indicate a flaw in society or our mindsets. As the exercise progressed, different people stepped in different directions and sometimes we were forced to let go of people’s hands to progress. One it was over people were dotted all over the place a huge contrast to our initial position in a line. The movement during the game made me feel a range of emotions. Every time I stepped back, my heart sank as I was embarrassed that there was something so wrong in society and it’s mindset that people were not treated well enough but when I stepped forward I felt a sense of pride. When I had to let go of someone’s hand, it made me feel alone like I had nobody to share the experience with. This taught me how people who we work with in conflict zones will feel as alone as this at a much larger scale and that it was our job to make sure they felt a sense of safety and community in order to solve the conflict. This activity allowed me to empathise with them and made me more passionate about bringing a change to their lives. The conference was extremely informative about IFP in a way that allowed me to empathise and sympathise with the situations of the youth in a conflict zone and made me much more driven to make a change.

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2 thoughts on “UWC Peace Conference

  1. I have really enjoyed reading your reflections. Ther are two points that stand out for me:
    1) that you rightly reflect on the importance of the ice breakers in setting a positive tone for the group
    2) the power of the final activity in the discrimination session. The way that you explained it is really vivid and interesting to read.
    Ms Wilson

  2. I like how you reflected on what went well during the day, and you talked about specific factors and what it meant to you. I feel like the day was very beneficial towards you. I feel like you are preparing for what an IFP conference you will run will be like. I believe that we should all look forward to the future, however take the present process now.

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