Today we visited the workshop where Restore Belize Communications officer, Anna Banner Guy, told us that all community workers need to be armed with conflict mediation skills.

Ana Banner Guy, Communications and Resource Mobilization Officer for Restore Belize
"What is different about this particular training is that we're also including community workers. We know that, as much as the teachers work with the students, the government as well as other social partners and NGOs they also work along with the young people through different programs. It is important for as to arm all our community workers with these very important skills in conflict mediation."

"Most of our participants have been actively involved in mediating different conflicts on a daily basis. This training however is bringing new skills, techniques and formalizing the work that they have been doing for many years in some cases. And we're hoping that they will leave from here, feeling more confident, feeling more secure and of course be more efficient solving conflicts but more importantly is that these skills will be passed on to the young persons that they work with in their communities and by extension strengthening and building the communities. It's very important for us, at Restore Belize, to create a more sustainable society. Our main target is building and improving and strengthening citizens security for Belize in a whole but more important for our most valuable resource, which is our human resources."

Marlene Montejo, Belize City Community Police Officer
"My unit, community police, deals with the youth. We are the once who usually respond to conflicts between youths and we know these days our youths are having a lot of conflicts among themselves."

"So today me and some of my colleagues we are here. We usually do mediation but, like they say in the old school way, so we're here to learn and to enhance our knowledge of doing it the proper way. We are gaining a lot of knowledge. It's a very knowledgeable training and we're hoping to take back a lot from this and putting it into our sessions when we deal with our youth that we usually come across."

"In this training we are learning about different techniques and different ways we can go forward with and dealing with the different situation we come to face with the youth."

"We must learn that being the mediator is not being the police officer at that time."

Pamela Dyer, Facilitator for the meditation training
"With the crime and violence in Belize right now, I believe it is really a positive alternative, you know, in terms of allowing a person an outlet to solve a situation rather than just dealing with it violently."

"For me as a councilor and as a trained meditator, it takes some time to develop the skills. It's a new way of dealing with crime and violence, it's a new way of even dealing with your personal life. It's a skill that you take away for yourself and for your profession."

Ana Banner Guy
"We're hoping for rippling effect, we're hoping that the mediators armed with these skills and these techniques will be repeating them throughout the community and with the people they have been working with. And of course, any skill learnt will transfer on and on and we're hoping that this will shift, change, build and really strengthen the communities that we are working with."

"Belize is very diverse and so whatever we do, whatever training we embark, it's always important for us to add that aspect of the training how effective it's going to be depending on what communities and what cultures you're working with."

The workshop lasts until February 7th. It is funded through the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Government of Belize and is part of Restore Belize's Youth and Community Transformation Project.