Creative Change Foundation

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."
~George Washington Carver

Moving on with conflicts..this is how we will reconcile for change.

**FUNDAMENTALS OF RECONCILIATION - in the perspective of RECONCILIATION FORUM**
Becky Haokip

One way of imagining reconciliation is that it is about making SPACE. This can be physical space, where zones or areas are created, where people feel safe and free from harm. At other times new social spaces (eg. like RF) can be created, where people can speak their minds, think aloud, and talk together with others about the future. And still in other instances, it involves creating internal space where a traumatized person can be free from the burdens of the past. Reconciliation and peace building then are about opening up spaces. Reconciliation poses a great challenge. Finding the spaces to make new choices involves very deep, personal emotions and decisions. Often reconciliation is not achieved between people who were enemies in violent conflict. For reconciliation to occur, people have to be in a place where they are able to think and act differently, where they have space and opportunity to think about more than just their physical survival and can begin to imagine life without fear and hate. The process of reconciliation occurs as part of our journey to peace. Peace is an interesting term with many meanings. Peace is often understood in the negative, as the absence of war or conflict. However, we can also understand peace positively as a state of personal and social health and wholeness.

In public, political processes, reconciliation is often portrayed as a process that a person or a country must go through immediately, in order to move into a new future. However, this approach
contradicts much of the research and practice on individual healing and reconciliation. Personal reconciliation is a very slow process. The stories and memories need to be given time to be told. As Robert Schreiter states: “Reconciliation involves a fundamental repair to human lives, especially to the lives of those who have suffered. That repair takes time –time that can make the participants feel insecure, but necessary time nonetheless for beginning a new life” (1995, p.21).

The foundations are our people, our relationships, and the social spaces we need to support the process of transforming division to increased respect and interdependence, and increased involvement in and responsibility for building peace.

The Beatitudes (Mathew 5: 3-13): 7 Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them!
8 Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God!.
9Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children!
Shalom!!

☆3 ways to influence others☆

♡Logical Appeal- tap into people rational and intellectual positions

♡ Emotional Appeals - connect your message, goal or project to individual goals and values.

♡ Cooperative Appeals- involve collaboration, consultation and alliances.