1st Committee Meeting in Vilo (blog #4)

One of the highlights of my time here so far was our first committee meeting in Vilo, one of the 3 communities we will be working in here.  We were able to establish a committee during our first visit out to the Vilo community as they are very eager to start the program and anxious to get involved.  Our committee in Vilo consists of 20 people from youth to adults including the local sub chief who has a great personality and seems to be very active in the community and well respected.  The committee also includes students, coaches, teachers, elders, pastors, business leaders, and community leaders. 

In our first meeting we started with an ice breaker to get everyone up and moving.  I explained that the group was to get into a line from youngest to oldest but the catch was that they could not talk.  I observed but my colleagues Stephen and Scott as well as our host, Kalongo were involved in the activity.  We conducted the activity outside of our meeting room which is a small, one room building with wooden benches, 4 wooden chairs for us mzungus (white people) to sit in and a desk where the chief and secretary usually sit.  Once the committee started participating in the activity and trying to organize themselves from youngest to oldest, it seemed that our committee grew quit a bit.  We went from 20 people to about 36 people as other community members joined in.  It was interesting to see this interaction especially since most of the people that joined in did not know what they were supposed to do.  The group took about few minutes to get in a line but I observed that there was little interaction going on in terms of communication.  Stephen and Scott tried to communicate their age to others through various hand signals which some people seemed to understand and some did not.  When the group was all assembled in a line, I asked the chief to come out and check to see if it was accurate.  He moved a couple of people around and then stated it was correct.  I them proceeded to ask everyone their age and not surprisingly, there were several discrepancies in the line. 

We went back into our meeting room and debriefed the activity.  I asked what some of the challenges were with the activity.  Someone stated that it was not that hard.  I asked what were some ways that they were able to communicate with each other and some replied through hand signals and clapping.  Someone else commented that they learned more about each other b/c they really did not know how old everyone was and he was surprised to find out that he and Stephen were the same age.  (No one knows how old I am thoughJ).  Scott asked if they did it again would they be able to get it right and a young committee member responded, “Of course because now we know how old everyone is but if new people came in it would mess us up b/c we do not know how old they are.”  I told them that they will have more chances to prove because we will do similar activities before each meeting.  One point that I wished I would have brought up in hindsight was how outside influences changed the dynamics of the outcome of the activity.  There would have been a greater chance for success if the additional people did not jump in without knowing what was really going on.

After the icebreaker, we had everyone introduce themselves again and then established a charter as to how we will conduct meetings with the input of the committee.  Here is what we came up with:

1.       Cell phone should be on silent and if you need to take a call, you should step out of the room. (This was important to me because in our preliminary meeting, several cell phones went off and it was very distracting.  Everyone seemed to be ok with the idea.)

2.       Respect time.  Meetings should begin and end on time.  (This was important especially considering that we were actually an hour late for the meeting because we were waiting on our host that was held up in another meeting.  We did not want this to be the precedent for our meetings and we apologized several times but it was bad on our end to be late.)

3.       Raise one finger when you want to speak. (this is something that is done in other community meetings in Vilo)

4.       Use a hand signal where you make a “T” with your hands if you want to add on to what someone else is saying (also a strategy used in Vilo meetings).

5.       Clap hands 3 times to get everyone’s attention and back on track.

6.       Tolerance- respect others when they are talking and do not cut anyone off

7.       Speak slowly especially when what you are saying is being translated.

Everyone agreed on this charter and we proceeded to the small group discussion of our meetings.  We divided the committee into 4 smaller groups to discuss the topics of peace, reconciliation, sports and peace education.  They were to assign a leader, a time keeper, a reporter and a secretary and after 10 minutes of discussion, each group would present on their topic for 2 minutes.  The group discussions went well and promoted great ideas. There was a connection made between peace, reconciliation and freedom; one group expressed that sports helps with physical fitness and also strengthens relationships because it brings communities together; yet another group expressed that reconciliation helped put in regulations between people in conflict and bring people back to peace. 

We ended the meeting with thoughts on what the Bible states about reconciliation for the committee to reflect on for next week and established that our meetings in Vilo would be every Wed. at 2:30pm.  I truly enjoyed this meeting and hope that we can continue to have meetings that are this engaging and productive.  This was a chance to actually begin to put in place all of the things I studied in my masters program in International Peace and Conflict Resolution.  Many of my professors talked about similar program they had conducted or told about program designed to work towards peace and reconciliation and here we were in a small African village beginning to do the same thing!  I was so excited yet also overwhelmed at the task that is set before us.  There is a lot to consider and we will face many challenges as we begin to implement our program but our idea is to involve the community at all levels and have their buy in so that this program is sustainable and so that the community takes ownership of the program.  We are not here to say that we know everything and that we can fix all the problems but we are here to share our expertise and work along with the community on this path towards peace and reconciliation.