Section 4 Facilitating Meetings Between People From Different Backgrounds

The learning agenda is to support everyone look at how we, as different people, living and / or working in one place, can develop our own personal agency-our ability to make a considered contribution to the common good.

In order that each person experiences being at ease together, it is important that the facilitator gives each person space:

• to find their voice,
• to examine the reasons they have been, or are, acting in particular ways and,
• affirm existing choices, or, if necessary exercise new choices to live with different others.

The responsibility of the facilitator is to:

• be free to meet people from all backgrounds and traditions;
• assist people in the group reflect on those aspects of their personal lives and context they wish to;
• ensure that no one feels pressure to disclose anything they do not wish.

The Reflective Group Ethos

The central tasks for the group facilitator are:

• To guard the boundaries of the group in order that all group members are able to be heard (ensuring there is equity).
• To curate a group culture where there is always respect for diverse views and experiences (affirming diversity).
• To facilitate a culture where all members value and enjoy being together in a reflective group (nurturing interdependence).

Ensuring All Participate - Intimidation Has No Place

The facilitator seeks:

• to ensure that people feel at ease, relaxed and supported to share their experiences.
• to create an atmosphere between group members where each listens to the other without interrupting.

The group is a place:

• where participants can be quiet and not have to explain their silence.
• where everyone has an opportunity to speak, however long they may take to find their words.

It is important that you encourage people to illustrate their situation on paper or a board if they are unsure about speaking in groups.

When some people say they do not understand something another has said, it is important the facilitator ensures there is time and space for clarification.

In moments where questions follow a participant sharing their personal story, any person who raises questions is always invited to talk about where their question comes from in their own history. This keeps all sharing on a personal level and “cuts” any tricks people may wish to play or attempts to intimidate other group members.

Two further tasks are:

• to be sensitive to the dynamic between the participants, watching for discomfort, the intakes of breathe, the movements and glances people make.
• to ensure you do not interpret or analyse what is being said but gently sit with the group.

Acknowledging Emotions in a Diverse Group

To meet others from different traditions where there is mistrust and hostility can be an experience in emotion rather than in logic and rationality. A key task in bringing people together is to legitimise different feelings and understandings being shared, explored and understood, especially when the group meets within a contested or conflict-affected society.

Such open and inclusive meetings, in themselves, when they work, are mould breaking events to be nurtured and repeated.

A Diverse Learning Group Can Be a New Structure in Daily Life

“Learning Together” begins as an event where we experience ourselves being at ease “with a different other”. When it is repeated often, it becomes a new pattern and, repeated even more, eventually it becomes a new structure. In such ways events become patterned and, eventually, establish new structures of people being together. This is a contribution that each person, and the civic and public organisations they are part of, adds to wider civil society.

(See The Dynamics to Promote-Events, Patterns, Structures and Norms DH 8).

It is important to understand that the very event of meeting together, repeated over time, might well be a completely new experience.

Therefore, as the facilitator, you assist group members:

• to understand the value of their different emotions being understood;
• to value the importance of the diverse relationships being developed between them;
• to clarify how their emotions, fears and uncertainties can be channelled, without dismissing the other person or denying them a place;
• to support each person find ways of living and working together for the wider common good.