On the weekend of 5-7.7.18 an exciting meet up was held in Talitha Kumi, Beit Jala between Israeli and Palestinian mental health professionals under the project of Building Peace & Resilience which is supported by the USIAD and carried out jointly by the school of peace and Enmaa center from the Palestinian authority.

This is the third bi-national meeting dedicated for learning skills of facilitating conflicted groups by practicing it with fellows in the group and learning theories from specialized lecturers in the field.

Lectures were about “1948 Palestinian catastrophe Al-Nakba” by Prof Mostafa Kabha, “Theories about identity and the process that the majority group goes through during the Jewish-Palestinian meetings” by Dr. Nava Sonnenschein and “Applications for the inter-group working method of the school of peace on other conflicts” by Dr. Ariela Freedman.

During the workshop four units of fellow’s facilitation were conducted into two smaller groups. 

It was a great opportunity for the participants to improve their facilitating skills through experience and by getting feedback from the course staff.

Participants In this group have a lot of curiosity and desire for learning, there was a remarkable improvement regarding the understanding of the facilitator’s role in a group comparing to the meeting at the first weekend.

Among the topics discussed during the meeting we talked about: how to make focus throughout the process and to highlight important issues discussed by the group, the importance of summarizing at the end of every unit in order to avoid judgment, the preference of highlighting the process that happened upon what did not happen.

We also talked about the group voice and the necessity of the participation of others in the group while discussing a central issue, and about obstacles confronting facilitators in pairs and three as well.