Are we aware of the “other” presence? In all its ideas, beliefs, colours, sounds, languages, spirituality, opinions, existences, powers, practices and knowledges? Or are we just looking without seeing?
Authors: Hind El Fadli & Tiago Lobo Dos Santos
The first week of the project was all about novelty. Well, by one hand, we had a very enriching experience of sharing knowledge between the team with the tricky (and never easy) help and mediation of Helder Santos: since the very first minute he challenged us to promote our own iniative of learning. In the other hand, it was a bumpy path towards finding interpersonal discomfort in the convivence of the team. In reality this discomfort that everyone experimented in the daily interactions was a boosting for team building: comfort trough discomfort. We were not a team. But now we are. But why!?
Conflicts! Being aware of the limits of each one of us, various thresholds of intimate personal spaces, divergent preferences, personalities, sensitivities, styles of communication and cultural diversity. How can we now say that we are a team? We owe it to conflicts themselves. The trick is as simple (not simple at all!) as creating rules for solving conflicts. Conflicts should be brought to daylight: we can’t keep them buried forever. If we choose so, changement is impossible! Ironically it was on one entire day (being truth, more than that) of conflict(s) that we defined “Changement” as one of the core values for the vision and mission of ASITI games.
In the end, the big lesson that we take with us for the following weeks (and months…life?) is the tool of social street work approach for the detailed observation of the urban public spaces —being aware of all the human and physical subtleties around us, as we practiced trough the enchanting city of Bologna. Being aware of how we can use conflicts as powerful educative messages: to the parts directly involved and to the spectators. The tip is to share power: it is crucial to work with youth more than for youth because to “Respect” (our third value) is giving the possibility of having an audience on which to participate and create. As R. Pranis stated, we can tell how much power a person has by how many people listen to their stories; the simple fact of listening to their story we give them power.
We ourselves experimented this troughout the week. Sharing stories through games played late night was the mean to create the connection between each other of us: games create audiences, audiences can create the sharing of power.
Finally, in the last day of this week training we had the first experiment of using our own preliminary games in the public space at Piazza Miaggiore. Bellissimo momento! We played a wide variety of games with different purposes and more than 50 youngsters had joined us with the common language of the game: the musical game! It doesn’t matter what language you speak, when you can speak the universal language of the peace (ASITI) games! Like Sole and Gabriele actually teached us: they were the soldiers of our peace games! Thank you soo much guys!! You were awesome! Feel all invited for the next Friday (12th April) peace games at the same place: Piazza Maggiore in the afternoon.
