After a first seminar in September 2022, we were able to assess the results of an intermediary meeting at the end of January 2023, and we welcomed the participants for the second and last seminar from 13 to 22 August, first in Estavayer-le-Lac, then in host families in Lausanne. It helped us explore certain issues from the first seminar and helped them build their support network.

This new project was developed in 2021 by our association with the aim of offering the mainstays for dialogue we have been supporting for so many years with a space to reflect on their work, to debate fundamental questions and learn from each other without being acquainted and never having had the opportunity of sharing the other’s experience.
THE SECOND SEMINAR
This took place from 13 to 22 August 2023. It reunited 9 mediators, 6 Palestinians (from Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank) and 3 Jewish Israelis. Among the participants of the first seminar, four weren’t able to come, one due to a serious road accident, another due to the crucial state of health of their father, the third due to a work overload and the fourth due to a latent depression. However, they remain committed and the participants at the second seminar consider them members of the group. Four others quitted at the end of seminar 1 for various motives.

This second seminar was led by Walid Mula, an Israeli Arab moderator with a vast experience in facilitation, a teacher in facilitation and author of academic articles on the subject, and Yael Maayan, a Jewish Israeli, who also has a wide experience in facilitation and training. At the follow-up meeting in January 2023, we focussed once again on exchanges on Hebrew and Arabic, with a simultaneous interpretation in English-Arabic-Hebrew for two participants, ensured by four professionals. Being able to express themselves in their mother tongue was one of the turning points for the group.

The following report is a summary of the feedbacks at the end of the seminar and also Fiuna Seylan Ongen’s observations after having participated as an observer-participant in all the seminars and intermediary the meetings.

OBJECTIVES
The main objectives identified for the 2-year programme were reached. Point 3 was not during this last seminar and only partially for the whole programme.

1    Learn from each other
2    Address your key concerns
3    Learn from other conflict areas
4    Create a supporting network
5    Offer you a re-energizing stay far away from the conflict area

GROUP DYNAMICS
THE SWISS POLITICAL SYSTEM
BENEFITS OF THE SEMINAR
At the end of this second and last seminar, the participants said they had grown and advanced, felt validated and had evaluated their knowledge. They also think they have entered into an ongoing training dynamics: the integration of a layered reflection through academic texts on dialogue and discussions on the texts during the seminar retained their attention and gave them the desire to learn more.
They learned from the moderators as well from each other. This programme was also a connection with oneself. The points on the agenda of the programme of this second seminar were all covered. They were crucial and replied to the practitioners’ central issues. Modifications were made to the programme in order to explore certain subjects and benefit from the quality of the work achieved.The distance from the conflict zones and the beauty of the environment offered an emotional appeasement. The group found a positive dynamics and several participants said they felt energised. A certificate of participation, handed to them at the end of their stay, was extremely appreciated by one and all.

AND WHAT THEN?
The desire to continue exists carried by several members of the group. The intentions below were expressed at the end of the seminar:

1    Create an online professional educational platform, a “Facilitator’s Forum”, a direct prolongation of this which aims to create a space in which the facilitators can connect, develop and reflect between peers to find moral and legal support in their work. This forum could lay the basis of an as yet non-existent professional framework in Israel/Palestine.
A first version of the concept was drawn up. Coexistences is going to advance the reflection with its initiators.

2    Discussion of the emergence of three work groups:
a    A group to share the apprenticeships and integrate those participants in the project who weren’t able to attend the last seminar.
b    A group to prepare the contents of the two live meetings/round tables:  meetings of the participants (via zoom or live) around subjects of interest to them as mediators. Since September 2022, three round tables have taken place: on 6.11.2022 (The situation and probable impact of the elections in Israel), on 11.12.2022 (Stress and trauma, impact on the facilitation work), on 19.05.2023 (Initiation of the co-developed tool by the Rossing Center and Holy Land Trust, Healing Hatred).
A new round table was planned for November 2023 to explore the theme Traumas and triggering elements. It couldn’t take place. The other issues identified and communicated in the previous accounts are still ongoing: construction of a trust and safe space, balance of powers within the facilitator’s teams and in the institutions which employ them, external perturbations and group work.
c   In the future, a group to prepare the content of a new seminar in Switzerland in two to three years with the mediators of this second seminar.

3    Develop initiatives (on the basis of personal centres of interests, involving certain members)
a    Development of the curriculum of training combining group facilitation and mountain sport to the intention of mediators interested in using sport as a vector of dialogue. The curriculum of this training would cover the construction of a process structure covering the issues such as team spirit, group identity, decision making by the majority or by building a consensus, personal and collective narratives This would consist of training over 6 week-ends and ending in a stay with Coexistences in Switzerland.
b    The initiators of the podcast project (see our NEWS 40) confirm that it is still pertinent. An introduction was recorded and shared with the participants. The round table in November 2023 will give the contents of the next episode.

NEXT STEPS
In view of the occupations of the group participants, the history and internal dynamics, the question of whether a volunteer coordinator from the group would be able to propel the group forward or if a paid coordinator would be more appropriate to avoid depending on the availabilities and the voluntary work often uncertain of job seekers. A person has volunteered. A job description is being drawn up.
A first conceptual proposal to develop a professional platform for the facilitators has been made. A structured and calculated proposal (vision, objectives, steps, calendar and budget) is scheduled for the end of November.
The group wants to organise for this same date a new round table and develop a rolling programme of future meetings. Coexistences received some evaluations of seminar 2 confirming its success and the satisfaction engendered.

Since 7 October, despite multiple personal and professional urgencies, the shock and horror, thanks to their calm and resilience, the discussion group for the round tables have met a number of times, facing the challenge of moderating the alumni WhatsApp groups, have consulted each other. On 14 November, the group met with their two moderators from this summer to exchange their experiences. This was an important meeting for the group offering the participants much needed support, solidarity and warmth in the middle of the tragedy. The Palestinians shared their feelings of a double guilt in front of the horrors of 7 October, and their helplessness in front of the terrible destruction operations in Gaza. The Israelis told of their incapacity to talk to their compatriots. One of them resumed the importance of this space saying that it was there that he could show his fragility and be more authentically himself. They also concluded that their values were their mainstay, the same as before 7 October. So, the group seems to play its role as a network of support and reference.

THANKS
Our most warm thanks to the DFAE (Federal Foreign Affairs reflection group Department), B8 of Hope, the Hirzel, Dafodyle, Sandoz, Waechter and Moser Foundations for their support of our vision, their confidence in our capacity to carry out this first programme over two years and their commitment next to us. We also had the support of the Canton of Vaud through the involvement of the Civil Protection who transported the group.

Finally, many, many thanks to the volunteers who contributed to the success of the two stays: Danielle and Edgar Bloch, François Feihl, Eric Raddatz, Halina and Massimo Sandri as well as the host families who accommodated the participants, the interpreters and the facilitators of this project: Danielle and Edgar Bloch, Sylvie and François Feihl, Delphine and Ariel Friedman, Fanny Jaquet, Miriam and Paul Kuelling-Lazega, Marianne and Christian Moekli-Adler, Can Ongin, Marie-Corinne and Thierry Probst-Favret, Halina Sandri.



Fiuna Seylan Ongen, Laurent Enser, 6 november 2023