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Day 1. Welcome. The training and its purpose.
SAID ALOUD
Day 1. Welcome. The training and its purpose.
Aim. To establish a good working relationship between the Trainer and the group, and develop a shared understanding of the aims of the training. To emphasise that you bring your own knowledge and experience to the training.
PART II: THE TRAINING
The Trainer says:
I welcome you very warmly to […]. Thank you for inviting us here and making it possible for us to be together for these three days to develop your ability to be a good helper to women who have been exposed to violence and injustice, and who suffer in their bodies and minds.
I have some knowledge of trauma and reactions to it that I will share with you. But I want to stress from the very beginning that I will rely greatly on your participation, and the insights that you can bring to our thinking, using experience and knowledge that you have already.
You will make crucial contributions to this workshop, because you know about your situation and context, you know your community and those who live in it, and you have thoughts and ideas about what could be different and better.
Before we start, I would like to introduce myself as the Trainer, and give you some practical information about the workshop. Then I will talk a bit about ideas we believe in. In particular I want to speak about human rights and how we can understand a lot of our work and engagement in terms of human rights.
During these three days we will focus on the violence committed against women, on women’ s suffering, and the strength of women. For too long, violence against women was not taken seriously by society or in the political sphere. It was accepted that this was something that happens privately – at home – or has always been part of war and conflict, an almost inevitable thing, a form of‘ collateral damage’. I believe this perspective is changing – fortunately. Violence against women is now seen as a crime as well as a serious human rights violation, something that must be fought, prevented and eliminated in every way possible, in war and in peacetime, at home as well as in public places.