7 News Belize

Restore Belize Teaches The Art Of Peace
posted (February 19, 2013)
In June of last year, 7News told you about the training in which Restore Belize and the US State Department collaborated on to teach Belizeans the art of conflict mediation. It was a major part of Restore Belize's intervention in the warfare between gangs, and one of the techniques employed to try to maintain the gang truce.

Well, Restore Belize is expanding the conflict mediation training for the next 2 years, and they've decided to include educators, seeing their opportunity to de-escalate situations in the classroom environment.

Today, 7News stopped by the ITVET to witness the training being conducted with the educators, in which the Belizean s who participated in last year's session where now the facilitators.

Here's what one of those trainers told us about the sessions so far:

Pamela Dyer, Facilitator - Conflict Mediation Training
"Basically we are doing the same training that I received sometime last year and I believe it is a asset for any organization or any institution and even for you own personal self to acquire this level of training which is Conflict Mediation. At the end of the day they will understand what it is to be a mediator and the skills that they will need to carry through with the process."

"We know that conflict occurs in our everyday lives. Therefore what we are doing is that we are acquiring the skills so that whenever we would encounter a situation or we would be called upon because basically we are hoping that the skills that we impart today that they will be used in their various capacities. Therefore they will understand what it is to be a mediator."

"We have in this training the educational system; we have different high schools, we have the police community unit, we have high schools and primary schools educators here."

This particular group started the training yesterday, and they finish their last session on Friday. The expansion of the program started early last month, and it is expected to conclude in June 2014. So far this year, 26 persons have participated.

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