IFP Conference Reflection

Initiative For Peace (IFP): Timor-Leste Conference June 2018

 

Details

Location: Dili, Timor-Leste

Dates: 21-25 June 2018

 

Reflection for Day 1 (21st June: Welcoming / Personal Identity)

Delegates from Timor-Leste started to arrive at around 10am. Before meeting them, I had so many questions: What are they going to be like? How good is their English? Will there be a major language barrier? Will we have things to talk about? Will it be awkward? Will they enjoy the conference? How passionate are they really? However they trickled into the convent where we were staying at with huge smiles on their faces. They were all so friendly, even sticking out their hand to greet me before I could greet them. They all actively participated in the icebreakers and kept smiling throughout it all. In the first 2 hours, the girls had already taught me how to do a Timorese dance move/game.

 

After lunch was when we were to begin the first theme of the conference: Person identity. My team was running this day and this made me extremely nervous. I didn’t know whether their English proficiency would get in the way of certain activities we wanted to run. As we were the first group to present, we had to gauge their engagement towards certain activities and figure out how to pace the day. We planned to begin our activities at 2pm after lunch, however we were told to start at 1pm that morning. After revising our schedule, we were told to change it to 1:30pm due to the opening ceremony that was taking place before. However the opening ceremony ended early and we ended up starting the activities at an awkward time of around 1:15. We were also told last minute that there would be snack time at 4:30pm. This made it hard for us to make sure that the activities fit within these time frames and that the day would still flow smoothly. I think the hardest part of facilitating was to know when to move on to the next activity. Often, a few groups would be done discussing the questions to the point where even co-facilitators didn’t know what else to ask the delegates. However other groups would still be deep into conversation and the co facilitators asked us to give their groups more time to discuss. As a lead facilitator, I didn’t know whether to cut off conversations and move on, or to just let groups that were done to sit around/continue the discussion for the sake of it. It didn’t seem right to move on to another activity with certain groups and not others. In the end, we let groups finish off their conversations before moving on, and because of this, the energy from other groups dipped a little.

 

Something that we should’ve done better was to plan more back up activities as well as energizers. We ended up running early and had to plan another activity on the spot. Thankfully it worked out well in the end, however, it would’ve been better to have it all planned before the conference as it would’ve also made me feel less stressed. We ended up arranging groups mostly by counting them off, so this is another area that we could’ve tackled more creatively. Energizers were so crucial during this day as we also had the responsibility of ensuring that the conference begins with a good start. However, we only had one energizer planned (the one where everyone stands in the circle and screams into the circle). A co-facilitator, Casper, had a great idea during the day to spend a quick 5 minutes having a dance battle between discussion groups- just to give delegates a quick fun break. The delegates really enjoyed this and their increase in energy after this energizer was very noticeable. I don’t know what my team would’ve done without Casper’s help.

 

An activity we did that I thought was particularly interesting to observe as a facilitator was diversity line. Delegates and co facilitators had to stand in a line and depending on whether they agreed or disagreed with the statements being read out loud, they would have to take a step forwards or backwards. Statements such as “I believe in a God or afterlife” and “I am proud of myself” had very different reception from the Timorese people compared to UWC students. Most UWC students did not believe in a God/afterlife and was not proud of themselves, whereas the delegates seemed to be much more religious and proud of themselves. It was interesting to see the difference between communities of people and how environments can change who they think they are.

 

My favorite activity of this day was probably the passion speeches that they had to write. The task was to spend half an hour to create a one-minute speech about a topic that they are passionate about that they would deliver to a small group. After doing this, a few delegates even wanted to share their speech to the larger group. Although their English was not the best, you could see the conviction in their voices. They spoke about topics like how we can make a change in the world starting today, the importance of education and how we should care for other people. It was so inspiring to see young people speak confidently in front of 60 people about something that means a lot to them.

 

During meal times I sat with my roommates (Lucia and Allie). At first it was a bit awkward as the conversation was just small talk, which I personally do not engage that well in. However after a while I realized how much we had in common. Lucia and I ended up discussing music artists and I found out that her favorite singer from her favorite band was Jin from BTS. We talked about EDM singers such as Marshmelo, Martin Garrix and DJ snake, as well as pop singers like Shawn Mendes and Dua Lipa. Her knowledge on pop culture surprised me, and reminded me that although Timor-Leste is not as developed as Singapore, the people there are still connected to the rest of the world (through pop culture) and that although we come from different backgrounds, we all share many similarities. It reminded me not to belittle who they are just because of our different socioeconomical backgrounds.

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a Reply