Number 5,
Spring 1997

CCCRTE

Report of a workshop held in Croatia, February 24-28, 1997

by Diana Francis

Despite the chaos and pressure brought into Vesna Terselic's life by her co-nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, she had managed to find14 participants for this workshop from Croatia and Bosnia: seven from Zagreb, two from Osijek, one from Zeneca, two from Tusla, one from Sarajevo and one from Gorny Vakuf. The real regret was the absence of participants from Serbia or Montenegro, where trainers who would otherwise have been eager to come were simply exhausted by the long weeks of political struggle which had just produced important victories.

These 14 participants -- approximately two-thirds women and all but one experienced trainers -- along with Marko, our cook and Vesna, Clem McCartney and me as facilitators, met together in a stunningly beautiful and isolated spot, about an hour's drive North of Zagreb, outside the village of Hrascina. Living conditions were relatively spartan, but the atmosphere which was quickly established in the group was one of trust and a kind of deep, yet relaxed, engagement. Several participants arrived late and several left early, which was, as always, to be regretted. However the concentration and continuity of the process seemed surprisingly little disturbed. The first day was given to a mapping of issues and concerns, and reflections upon current satisfactions and dissatisfactions with the training work being undertaken. Among the concerns voiced were dealing with trauma; finding the courage to introduce political issues; daring to address real conflicts within training; the applicability of theory and techniques to "hard conflicts", and trainers' own inability to apply them in areas of their own lives and organisations. The satisfactions mentioned related to some beginnings and successes in these same areas, to positive feedback from participants after workshops, and to a sense of personal development and meaning. The dissatisfactions were around the sense of some shortcomings related to performance, but more a general questioning of the trainers' own capacities to meet the real needs of participants and to achieve consistency in their life and practice.

(Note: I shall refer to participants in this "Beyond Training workshop" as "trainers". "Participants" I will use to refer to participants in other workshops, such as those our participating trainers run themselves. I shall refer to Vesna, Clem and myself as "facilitators".)

In the afternoon we considered the purposes of training, which were understood very much in terms of enabling participants to see things -- particularly conflict -- in new ways, and learn to tackle problems constructively, through participatory processes marked by respect. One group spoke of the goal of initiating change and promoting political action for a civil society with a place for differences. In the final session we discussed whether there was a general wish to have some impact on social and political processes, whether the trainers felt able to handle political issues and tensions when they made their way, bidden or unbidden, into workshops, and whether, if more outside realities were brought in, the skills, tools and theories on offer would prove adequate for the job.

In the first day's evaluation it was clear that the reflective tone and pace of the day had been appreciated; that in an atmosphere of openness a rich menu had been laid out for the rest of the week and that the trainers were now eager to start on the meal! Clem, Vesna and I spent an exhausting evening trying to find a shape for exploring the many concerns raised, and eventually came up with the broad plan for the rest of the week. Our overall theme was "Responding to reality"; firstly, our own realities as trainers; secondly, the realities brought into our trainings in the persons and and responses of workshop participants; thirdly, the realities of the world “out there”. This plan was presented to the group the next morning and received a positive response.

We began the day on our own realities as trainers with a consideration of the role of a workshop facilitator which, we all agreed, was to help or enable participants to discover new ways of doing things rather than to have theories or answers for everything. We identified self-awareness and "awareness in the moment" -- being able to note what was going on in a group at any given time -- as key skills for trainers. In order to practise such awareness, we continued with an examination of our own fears and uncertainties in training, and strategies and resources for coping with them.

After a long lunchtime, and plenty of fresh air and exercise, we turned our attention to feelings of hurt and anger and how we dealt with them, focussing on real conflicts in the trainers' lives. Our final session was given to reflections on different people's ways of sustaining themselves in their work and finding meaning in their situation. This session was greatly appreciated -- as indeed was the whole day: an "enormous day", as one trainer put it, which, it was felt, had provided a process for surfacing and examining questions of real concern for trainers.

On the third day of the workshop we came to our second "field" of reality: the reality brought in and generated by workshop participants. We (the facilitators) thought that role-plays would be the most appropriate way of engaging with these questions, and our proposal was readily supported. After listing workshop situations, both experienced and hypothetical, which were potentially or actually explosive, and discussing some ideas for how they could be handled, we proceeded to our first role-play, which was based on one of these scenarios. The experience was evidently quite intense for the participants and we spent considerable time on the debriefing. The two volunteer facilitators, particularly, felt they had learned a great deal, and that they would have more confidence about coping with and therefore being able to risk conflict in future. The morning's role-play was around how to handle a conflict between participants in a workshop. In the afternoon we chose a scenario in which the trainers themselves were under attack. Again, the detailed feedback given to the facilitators, and the general reflections of other role-play participants and observers, were found to be very useful for all of us, and especially for those who had played the trainer role.

We closed the day's work with a brief but productive exercise in devising training processes for surfacing or confronting difficult issues - mistrust, identity and prejucice, and victimhood - in manageable and constructive ways. Again, the evaluation at the end of the day was extremely positive. The trainers felt they had confronted things they were afraid of and had emerged feeling strengthened and resourceful. (Our daily evaluations were facilitated by different trainers.) The facilitation team had a hard time finding a way in to the day on responding to the realities "out there". We wanted to respond to the trainers' tentative wish to engage more with the real world, and were concerned to balance our own agenda for promoting greater political engagement in training with respect for the current views and experience within the group, and the need to open possibilities rather than force the pace. In the event the first session was given to an examination of the socio-political conditions in which trainers are currently working, or which they expect to emerge, in three areas: Croatia in and around Zagreb, East Slavonia, and Bosnia. Huge lists of problems emerged. In the case of Slavonia the problems related inevitably to the possible return of Croats and departure of Serbs, in response to the handing over of the region to Croatian control, and the enormous tasks which would be involved in establishing some new pattern of co-existence. The group which had focussed on Bosnia Herzogovina spoke of the particular problems of Bircko and Mostar, and more generally of the need for social, economic and psychological reconstruction, of the particular needs of children and young people, and of the need to establish recognised mechanisms for dealing with conflicts of all kinds. The group which had concentrated on the situation in and around Zagreb, identified a whole cultural pattern needing to be addressed, which they described as "victory euphoria" and the inability to handle power in other ways. There were more specific concerns about anti-democratic trends, the control of the media, social unrest, emigration and the spectres of a police state or a new war.

In the discussion which followed the group presentations, we considered Johan Galtung's idea of the "triangle" of cultural, structural and direct violence, and the need for all of these to be addressed. After the break the trainers looked at ways they could develop their work to meet the needs of the situations they had described in the three different regions.

In the afternoon, in response to a request the previous day, we set up a group consultancy session, in which the trainers worked in fours, taking it in turns to talk through particular problems they were facing. These groups brought selected issues into our final plenary for further discussion. The day's evaluation was once more very positive, and quite lengthy. For several of the trainers this was the last session, and they wanted to evaluate the whole workshop. One said she had learned that it was possible to begin a workshop "without a plan" and allow the group to help shape the agenda. Others spoke in terms of an entire process in which they had been able to re-examine their own experience, and

of surprise at the moves they had made in their thinking. They recognised their own courage, their openness to each other and to change, and the clarifications and new perspectives which had resulted. This had, apparently, been the first opportunity in several years for most of these trainers to meet in such a way and explore their own work together.

On the last morning the eight or so remaining trainers reflected more deliberately on learnings they intended to translate into action in future training, and we had some discussion of characteristics of training that make it more (or less) likely to be transferred to life beyond a workshop. Then, in pairs, the trainers identified aspects of their personal training style they hoped to change in some way, those they felt they could not change, and those they really valued and were glad to retain and develop. In our final session Vesna led a discussion on possible forms for future support and development for trainers that was somewhat inconclusive, although the will was clearly there. The Antiwar Campaign Croatia will certainly play its part in this, and the idea of local support groups was discussed. Before we closed, a few additions were made to the evaluations of the previous day. One trainer commented on the value of the process we had been through at the beginning of the workshop, setting out and struggling to clarify the issues at the heart of our concerns. It was this process, he said, that had "taken us to the top of the mountain". He also appreciated the slow, reflective descent of our last morning. Another trainer commented on the language barrier which had been overcome by a level of communication which was beyond language. Vesna expressed herself as more than satisfied with the things she had been able to change for herself and the changes we had been able, all of us, to help each other to make.

On our way home, Clem and I agreed that Vesna had managed to assemble an excellent group of trainers for this workshop, who had been able fully to benefit from and contribute to the opportunity and process we had offered. They had shared common needs and concerns, and expressed them clearly, so that we were able to respond, apparently, in the agenda we had constructed and modified as we went along. According to participants' own assessments, they had been taken beyond their existing horizons in thinking about their work and its context. This was what the title of the workshop had promised them, and what we had hoped to facilitate. It can be hard to hold on to new ideas and intentions, to find ways of enacting them in the thick of the pressures of everyday life; but I had the impression that these trainers were in earnest.

Diana Francis, a freelance trainer and facilitator, is also Chair of the CCCRTE

newsletter  |  ccts