Sept 30th: Creating Community in a New Place

On September 30th, 17:00-19:00, we are excited to hold our next facilitated discussion at the Geneva Graduate Institute, as we continue our collaboration with the Peacebuilding Initiative and its wonderful young leaders of the new generation. 

Our theme will be “Creating Community in a New Place. How do I connect, find community, and feel at home in Geneva?” The topic of creating community in a new place may be relevant to many in today’s world, with people moving to new places and spaces, voluntarily or not, due to life circumstances, geopolitics, wars, climate change, and many other reasons.  

This meeting is aimed at the MA students, new and 2nd year, who study in the fields of peace, conflict, security, and international relations. Such a format of facilitated discussions serves several purposes:

• First, to empower students, discussion participants, who are future world leaders, to interact with each other in an open exchange, build relationships across differences, and together address challenges at hand. 
• Second, to not only bring information and share different views, but to process information and hopefully complete some interactions, with the help of facilitation, to find new perspectives, insights, and even solutions within a given context, on an individual or group level. 
• Third, to experience community-building in a group of students from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and worldviews, holding volatile moments of understanding and unity as a ground to relate now and in the future, in times of splits, growing polarization, and division. We believe that peace cannot be forced; rather, it emerges naturally as a result of two different sides or polarities engaging and interacting with each other.
• Fourth, it is also a learning experience on how to deal with world politics in the moment, working together with and thus updating the field of international diplomacy, on the topics of inclusion, rank differences, and international relations. It is a learning experience for both participants and facilitators. 

One specialty about our facilitated meetings is that we do not set any rules. Drawing from the field theory, any rule creates a rule-breaker, and any rule-setting actually creates or better say ignite “monsters” that we try to set rules against. Then it is a matter of time when it comes out, often ‘unexpectedly’. For example, if the rule is “to respect everyone”, a “monster” in a room may be the one who is disrespecting, in a group or even inside an individual as momentary tendencies. We believe that instead of marginalizing the part that is disrespectful and waiting for it to come unexpectedly, it is crucial to give it a voice and bring its message. Thus, there is a greater respect for what is happening, including disrespect.

This meeting is not open to the public this time. However, we hope to share some of our personal insights as facilitators here on this page, in case we feel that it can beneficial for the broader circle of friends and serve the greater good. Stay tuned.