OIKOSNET Zambia

Report

Middle East Association of Training

And Retreat Centers

(MEATRC)

From New York to Zambia

June 2005-June 2006

Prepared by Dr. Nuha Khoury

In the second half of 2005 and the first half of 2006 the programs that MEATRC conducted on the regional and sub regional levels varied. While on the regional level MEATRC concentrated on the challenges facing the Christian presence in the Middle East, it continued offering capacity building programs on the sub-regional level, which varied in terms of topics and depended on the needs of the different regions.

As for the activities that took place on the regional and sub-regional levels from June 2005-June 2005, the following is a report.

-1-

Executive Committee Meetings

1.      An Executive Committee meeting for MEATRC took place in Cyprus in September 2005 during the regional training meeting. Some of the main issues discussed were

·        The new EED financial cuts and its influence on MEATRC’s work

·        Putting a new financial strategy for and the necessity for the member Centers to increase their financial contribution to MEATRC (i.e. raising the annual meeting fee from $50  to $75 USD/person and asking the member centers to cover their delegates’ expenses other than ticket and boarding during the annual meeting)

·        Freeze the membership of ATEME, as was requested by them

·        Participation in the WCC General Assembly meeting

·        The partnership project between MEATRC and CONOSUR

·        Hiring of a proposal writer

·        Possible topics for the annual meeting in 2006

2.      Another Executive Committee meeting for MEATRC took place in Beirut, Lebanon in February 2006. Some of the main issues discussed were

·        Approval of the Narrative and Financial reports for EED

·        Report on the participation in the WCC General Assembly meeting

·        Update on the partnership project between MEATRC and CONOSUR

·        Agreement on topic, location and speakers for the annual meeting in Cyprus in October 2006.

-2-

Regional Training Meeting 2005

The annual regional training program for MEATRC members was held in Cyprus between 16-22 of September, 2005. The topic of training for 2005 was “Christian Presence and its Role in the Middle East: Challenges and Opportunities.” The three speakers, who came from Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt, discussed the following topics with the participants: “The Challenges to the Christian Presence in the East and the Christians’ Response”, “Christians in the East and the Choices of Destiny”, “The Middle East Latin Patriarchs’ Letter on the Christian Presence in the Middle East”, “The Challenges to the Christian Presence in the Holy Land”, “Muslim-Christian Dialogue: Dilemmas and Scope” and “Christians in Egypt Between Sectarianism and Citizenship.” In addition to the topics outlined above, the participants watched a documentary film on the deteriorating situation of Palestinian Christians as a result of the Wall that Israel is building in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The film is entitled “Walling In Walling Out: A Bethlehem Story.”

-3-

Sub Regional Training

a. Syria

2. The importance of youth in the Church and in the society.

3. The importance of Citizenship.

1. Citizenship and general issues.

2. Ways to observe the needs of the society.

3. Applying and living citizenship in the Society in practical ways.

4. Living Citizenship in a multi-cultural society.

b. Lebanon

c. Palestine
 

The training workshop focused on teaching the models and methodologies developed by DPC for conflict management and resolution. The workshop, which lasted for 3 days, consisted of different components relating to working with and in environments of differences and conflict.

The training methods used varied between theoretical input and presentation of models, experiential learning and learning by doing or playing, group practice exercises and discussions, and role plays.

20 youth & young adults from 4 MEATRC centers in Palestine (YWCA, Sabeel, Liqa’, and ICB) participated in this program. Participants came from different Palestinians cities and backgrounds; from Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Jericho, and Nazareth.  

The overall evaluation by the participants of the training workshop content and methods was excellent. Some of the feedback from the participants on the benefits from this training workshop included better understanding of conflict and thus dealing with it, confidence in dealing with conflicts and looking at them with new eyes, tolerance and communication skills, practical ways of managing conflicts of different levels, and to use the learning gained from the workshop in their personal, professional, and social lives and in the community.

The participants particularly enjoyed and valued the practical dimension of the training; group work, discussions, games, role plays, and implementation exercises of theoretical information and models. 

The participants requested more and longer training program of this kind for youth, and to bring together people from the different MEATRC centers in Palestine. Dialogue for Peaceful Change (DPC) is a global coalition dedicated to creating safe spaces for overcoming divisions through a structured and skilled process of mutual empowerment.

1. Acquiring conflict management and conflict resolution skills
2. Understanding conflicts and exploring conflict drivers and drivers of peace: TIDES & FEARS models
3. Analyzing conflicts & their evolution, and conflict management mechanisms: Iceberg model
4. Understanding, simplifying, and managing conflicts of different levels and complexities (conflict mapping method)
5. Learning and applying some methods of conflict management and conflict resolution (mediation and others)
6. Acquiring communication skills for conflict management
7. Acquiring intercultural skills to work in environments of diversity and conflicts
8. Exploring experiential learning methodologies for conflict management
9. Exchanging and sharing experiences in conflict management among the participants, and building a network between them
10. Identifying the challenges and outlining the best practice of conflict management in the Palestinian context

The method of instruction included experiential learning & learning by doing, theoretical input and practice case studies.  The general evaluation of the participants was very positive. The majority said that they can and will use the skills that they have acquired in the training to resolve conflict in their personal as well as professional lives. A booklet and certificate of participation was given to all participants.

d. Cyprus

From August 13 to 19, 2005 Ayia Napa Conferences Center (Cyprus), in cooperation with the Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace held its annual seminar under the title “Deriving the Advantages of March 14, 2005 And Doing Away With the Concept of Lebanon as a Pavement”

The Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace has just published its eighth annual Report in cooperation of Ayia Napa Conference Center, of its “Civil Peace and Memory Monitor”.

The Report includes two parts: a chronological analysis of the events in Lebanon in the light of a grid set up by the Foundation of more than one hundred ‘Indicators of the Lebanese coexistence Pact’; and concrete action proposals in order to strengthen the national pact and build a collective and shared memory.

Positive Facts and Unfavorable Factors

            Four positive facts may be pointed out:

- The March 14, 2005 movement.

- The publication of documents related to the threats and the assassination of the Mufti of the Republic Hassan Khalid, as well as numerous revelations namely that of Tripoli’s Mufti Sabounji.

- International support in favor of Lebanon, which ought to be distinguished from any sense of interference.

- Instituting commemoration rites of April 13, as well as numerous works and publications to “forget, yet remember.”

Four unfavorable factors have been pointed out:

- The fact that Lebanon remains for some a confrontation ground (sâha) and one where “the war of others” is waged; it is still a pavement in the French sense of the term, i.e. used to settle regional conflicts whereas Lebanon “is no longer today a map but rather a trap”.

- The communitarian structuring (pillarization) that emerged from legislative elections despite an evolution towards pluralism between communities and within them.

- The regression of the structuring of civil society namely parties, unions, professional organizations, and NGOs, as support forces for public policies and social stakes.

- The return to allegations calling for a ‘new’ national pact, “whereas all haphazard experiences were made in Lebanon and we ought to adopt Rashid Karame’s words in 1976 facing the wave against the 1943 Pact: Let us work to enrich the Pact not to annul it (na’mal limâ yughnîhî wala ‘ulghîhî).”

Action Proposals

The Monitor brings forward fourteen concrete action proposals to ensure “immunity, national contrition and the passage from the war memory to a culture of peace”:

Foreign Policy Culture:

1. The motto: Lebanon first is the height of Lebanon’s Arab affiliation since it avoids fragmentation, the interference of brothers, sisters, cousins and other Arab kin in the Lebanese case as well as Arab ‘sacrifices’ in favor of Lebanon.

2. Lebanese-Syrian relations that are ‘most natural’ without a state of uncertainty or any wager on behalf of the Lebanese for endogenous or prompted changes in Syria’s political regime or any other Arab state’s regime.

National Pact Culture:

3. Endeavoring to conceptualize the Lebanese political system in the light of comparative research and endogenous experience without “intellectual laziness that is showed through global statements and pre-judgments.”

4. Promoting a national pact culture also in the light of comparative research and the Lebanese experience of conflict and consensus.

5. Renewing political discourse in order to re-establish trust between generations.

6. Promoting the love of Lebanon among youngsters as many of them wonders: ‘Why should I love Lebanon? For the perpetual risks of staying in this country? For the widespread corruption?”. The Report states very clearly: ‘To do away with Lebanon as a ground (sâha) as a pavement is the sine qua non condition to retrieve confidence in the future.’

Collective Memory and Immunity:

7. Trying to reactivate and vitalize the Civic Education and History curricula set up in 1997-2001 in the CRDP (Council for Pedagogical Research and Development) under the Direction of Professor Mounir Abou Asly.

8. Building memory sites and municipal museums to keep the memory; they ought to be centered around the Lebanese history not be exclusively about governors and about ‘Lebanon’.

9. Promoting educational cultural programs that help transmit past experiences in order to learn from them and acknowledge them.

10. Underlining the fact that the Army ought to use all its sovereignty prerogatives.

11. Re-establishing the authority of norms, the principle of legality, which was baffled during the war years by selective justice and instrumental legality.

12. Diffusing and applying integrally and effectively article 49 of the amended Constitution; by virtue of this article, the Head of the State is the guardian of the principle of legality, somehow a constitutional council before the constitutional council since he ‘sees to it (yashar) that the Constitution be respected.’

13. Conciliating between power sharing in a consensual system and the separation of powers, and the limiting of the bad effects of an elite-governed system from the top, namely through support to MP Neemtallah Abi Nasr ‘s law proposal in order not to have both a ministerial and parliamentary post.

14. Seeking to increase citizens’ actions on the local level based on the principle: thing global, act local.

The works of the Lebanese Civil Peace and Memory Monitor in the years 1997-2004 have already been published in one volume (dir. A. Messarra, in cooperation with Ayia Napa Conference Center and Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Beirut, Librairie Orientale, 2004, 656p.).

-4-

 Publications

1. MEATRC continues working on the website to make it a useful advocacy tool for the association. All Centers are encouraged to send and update materials that are relevant to the Association.

-5-

Participation in Activities on the Global Level

1. MEATRC participated in the CLLT of ASISCA held in the Philippines in September 2005 on the issue of Development. Mr. Ashraf Nabih from CEOSS represented MEATRC at the meeting. 

2. Mr. Sameh Fawzi from CEOSS and Ms. Tamara Kharoub from The International Center of Bethlehem (ICB) participated in the Dialogue for Peaceful Change (DPC) training program in Northern Island in May 2006. This is the third and final year that MEATRC participates in this global training program.

3. Rev. Serop Megerditchian participated in the WCC General Assembly meeting that took place in Porto Allegre in Brazil, as part of the OIKOSNET group that attended.

4. Tamara Kharoub from The International Center of Bethlehem (ICB) represented the OIKOSNET in the WCC General Assembly and was part of a team that presented the Project Dialogue for Peaceful Change (DPC) for the attendees of the General Assembly.