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TRAINING WITH COMMUNITY DIALOGUE

Community Dialogue in Association with Stanford Centre for Conflict & Negotiation offers a series of tailor-made & accredited courses. These courses offer the opportunity to:

• Enhance personal development
• Learn conflict management & transformation skills
• Develop political awareness
• Engage more effectively in an increasingly diverse environment
• Build cohesive communities
• Are central to the Shared  Future strategy of the Government

For our current brochure please click  here.

What's available?

A. Courses:

• Identity And Conflict
• Understanding Conflict and Diversity – What do they mean for Loyalists?
• Background To The Conflict
• Resolving The Conflict? The Belfast Agreement
• Wer're not Racist – They Are?
• We're not Sectarian – They Are?
• Dealing With The Past: From Victimhood to Survival?
• Agreeing The Future
• Gender issues
• Symbols and Parades: Rights and Duties
• Policing a Divided Society
• Paramilitaries: Crooks or Creators of a Shared Future?
• Irish Unification: Practical Possibility Or Political Fantasy?
• Conflict Management Strategies
• Dynamics of Peace Processes

Length:

Courses can be offered in blocks of:

• 2 hour seminars
• 1 day
• 8 sessions
• A one and half day residential

Process:

• Courses can be offered on a `single-identity' or cross-community basis.
• They will often have experiential sessions, e.g. a trip to the Somme Centre in Newtownards or a visit to Dublin (including a possible meeting with President McAleese).
• Depending on the wishes of the group politicians from different parties can be invited to give input and respond to questions.
• Courses will be adjusted to the experience and ability of participants: we believe strongly that many people, who have no formal education, have huge potential for learning.
• The purpose of the courses is to help people to:
• Find out what it is that really matters to them in the area of politics and society;
• Work out how to present this in an even more effective way;
• Plan strategies to achieve their goals.

• The content is planned with the local group organising the course, so that it is interesting to those doing it. One recent course covered the following areas:
• History of the Troubles (including your history)
• The Belfast Agreement: what's in it?
• Identity: what is our identity/ies? How many identities do we have?
• Dealing with the past? How do we avoid getting stuck?
• Peace Processes in Other Countries: How have they managed their conflicts?
• Options for the future: how do we move forward?

B. OCN accredited:

The following courses are accredited by Open College Network, Northern Ireland

• How to Dialogue (Level 3: 3 credits)
• Understanding Conflict in Northern Ireland (Level 2: Credits: 3)
• Understanding Active Citizenship in the Local Community (Level 1, 2 or 3; Credits: 1)
• Understanding Diversity in Society (Level 1 or 2: Credits: 3)
• Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination (Level 1 or 2: Credits: 3)

For Level 3 courses, approximately 10 hours are taught and 20 hours other work is required
For Level 2 courses, approximatel 15 hours are taught and 15 hours other work is required.
For Level 1 courses, approximiately 20 hours are taught and 10 hours other work is required.

3. Funding

Our Process

For more information contact:

“It is important for all parts of civic society to take responsibility for building a shared, tolerant & inclusive society. Relationships are central. There is…an onus on all of us to play a part in initiating, encouraging & developing dialogues. We need to ensure that the ‘spaces’ where we have a responsibility are really safe for everyone and  they are used actively to create… conversations to build relationships.”
(A Shared Future 2005: 13)