I’ve been participating in various trainings that helped my personal and professional development for a long time. But it was only at the age of 33 that I participated in a training like this one. I can say, without a doubt, that the Introduction to Peacebuilding training was the best I have ever attended. This training helped me get to know and understand myself better, as well as the people around me.
It helped me broaden my view, I came to see the positive sides as well as the shortcomings I have personally and that we generally have as a society. Although I am a peace-loving person by nature, through this training I brought awareness to my own prejudices, which I didn’t think I had.
The topics about violence, conflict, discrimination, gender roles, diversity, peacebuilding, dealing with the past, as well as many other topics about our role in society were handled with great care and professionalism during the training. The topics we dealt with through the exercises enabled the participants to be together irrespective of national, religious, etc. belonging, while through the defined roles, they enabled each of us to create empathy and understand each other better, breaking down the prejudice we may subconsciously carry.
The diversity of the participants made the training very lively. Even though I was the only representative of the Turkish-Kosovar community, the atmosphere that was created made me feel welcome and free to exchange my thoughts with the trainers and other participants – who were all wonderful people.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank the whole team for their dedication, patience and tireless work over the 10 days of the training, and to wish them further success in future projects that I would very much like to participate in :).
I would recommend including other minority – marginalised communities to make it more comprehensive.