The unique approach of Friendship Village to Dialogue Projects of conflict groups.
Conflicts between people are composed of different factors: This is mostly a conflict between material interests, struggle for power, for status, for respect and dignity. These components can be approached from their cognitive aspects (trying to understand the reasons of the conflict, learning its history, personal and group backgrounds, interests, thinking over and discussing possible solutions, etc.) or from their emotional aspects ( fears, hatred, prejudices, stereotypes, hostility, mistrust etc. that are embedded in each individual in the involved groups).
When bringing together people from two (or more) ethnic, national or cultural groups that live in a state of conflict, both approaches have to be considered, while an effort is made to solve the conflict – or at least to bring it to a degree that both sides can live with. Most activities in the field of dialogue all over the world, mostly emphasize the cognitive approach. In most seminars, workshops and other activities that are held in the purpose of dialogue development, the organized part of the project is devoted to lectures, discussions, simulations, joint activities and so on – as the organizers believe that the very meeting of the conflict partners at the activity will by itself reduce the level of hostility, therefore there is no need to care about the elaboration of the conflict's emotional aspects.
There is no greater mistake than this.
Emotions are maybe the most important components that can prevent any results in every effort to solve conflicts. Positive emotions perhaps can not solve objective conflicts of interests, but negative emotions can surely prevent every real and lasting solution. On the other side, an open, emphatic approach on both sides can facilitate negotiations and help to achieve agreements and positive ways to live together. Unfortunately, this side of conflict solutions is all but too often neglected by dialogue programs over the world – especially in Europe.
In "Friendship Village" we use methods that are rather known and usual in Israel, but hardly known – if at all – in other countries (with the exception of N. Ireland, where similar methods have been developed independently). Our approach in our Inter-ethnic Dialogue Programs is to treat both aspects of the conflict: Emotional aspects of conflicts are emphasized – and treated on personal and group levels, at the same time cognitive aspects are not neglected neither: They are used mostly as a basis to arise problems, which are elaborated, later on, on an emotional level. We call this method "Dynamic Workshops".
Success of our two main Projects (Talk Peace – Make Peace and Woman Educators for Peace & Human Rights) can be explained by the well experienced team that facilitate them – and by our unique approach that combines both the cognitive and the emotional components of the conflicting situations that were worked out during their course, in synergy. Our purpose is, beyond creating meeting points of view, narratives, problems and vested interests of each side by the other, to reduce the levels of hostility, fear, hatred and prejudices on both sides toward each other, by uncovering the deepest feelings of each individual, concerning the other side, and their emotional elaboration further on.
Judging by the feedback from participants and from our partners to the Projects – it works, and it works very well. Almost all participants (in both projects) changed their point of view about different aspects of the problems in discussion, adopted a more open approach to the other side and expressed their will to use the means trained along the Project, in order to strive toward respectful relationships between partners to the conflict.
