Hope is Something You Do: March 2010

Hope is Something You Do (or “HISDO” for short) is our day-long workshop on peaceful conflict resolution.

The House of Peace Teen Leaders, a group of high school students from different area schools, present the workshop twice a year.

The Teen Leaders begin their training in August, meeting monthly, in order to prepare for their presentations. They learn presentation skills, small group facilitation skills, group dynamics, and communication skills, along with the fundamentals of non-violent conflict resolution.

The workshop is usually presented to groups of middle school students, although we often get parents to attend with their sons and daughters.

This March, we presented the workshop to a group of teens and parents; many of the youth came from Our Lady of Lourdes parish of Milwaukee.

The workshop is created to be a fun experience for the participants. There aren’t any long lectures. It starts off with games so the participants can learn each other’s names, and a brief introduction to the individual Teen Leaders.

The first teaching about conflict is done with a skit that shows a family in conflict. Someone has stolen money from the dad’s wallet, and the parents are trying to figure out how to get to the truth. After the skit, the actors go to five areas of the room, and the participants are asked to stand next to the character they think is most responsible for the conflict.

Each person in the skit operates from a different “personal style,” and the participants learn the styles by role playing them in different situations.

The audience never sits for long, because every lesson is taught with activities and games, and because every concept is used right away and reinforced.

The two communication skills are learned by having all the participants practice different ways of listening and talking.

The four types of conflicts are taught with four more skits, followed by the participants coming up with examples in games and sports, as well as in real life.

We take lots of breaks, because part of the fun of the workshop is getting to know the other people in the room, and just hanging out, talking, laughing and munching on snacks.

We also do a lot of ice breakers and energizers – just for the fun of it – and because even the craziest activities all have a hidden less in how conflicts start and how they get solved.

Eventually, everyone is assigned to one of two countries, and they go through a simulation of war. Each country raises up leaders to speak to each other in a summit meeting; they are called upon to use all the skills they learned all day to determine if they can come to terms for peace, even though lives have been lost on both sides, and there is plenty of cause for anger and even hatred.

The workshop ends with a closing prayer that features Jesus as the master peacemaker.

We already heard from one family who used the skills from HISDO less than one week after attending the workshop to resolve a family conflict.

If this experience sounds like something you think would benefit your middle school sons and daughters or the young teens in your church or school, don’t hesitate to contact us. We are already taking reservations for next year’s workshops!