"Trust"

Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information- IPCRI
held in Tantur on 11-12 April 2008 a Peace Education Conference

Participants came from many different places and religions, different ages and different walks of life.
There were more than 45 presentations and several workshops, among them one about “Trust” given by Elana Rosenman and myself, which was well attended.

Dialogue can take place only on the basis of mutual trust.

In pairs each person was given 3 minutes to talk about a personal experience, while the other listened without comments and after 3 minutes they switched over and the talker became the listener. It is amazing how much one can convey when there is a compassionate listener.

After that we split up into two smaller groups to allow input for everybody on the subject: “What is helpful in building trust?” From the dialogue in the small group came the following remarks:

To limit expectations, patience, putting things in a positive way, work against prejudice, protection, finding the balance between tensions, somebody who is close to you, you have to trust yourself, you have to be a trustworthy person yourself, self confidence, trust starts from birth, to be courageous, to take risk, we cannot change the world.

At the closing circle of the workshop participants were asked to give just one word, any word, what trust means to them.

Comfort, truth, revelation, construction, respect, faith, connection, honest, helping, affirmation, dignity, love, openness, personal, no fear, building, compassion, bravery, integrity, return, forgiveness, life, acceptance, sympathy, consistency, diversity.

Elana Rosenman is the founder and I am a cofounder of “Trust-Emun” a new Israeli nonprofit organization committed to building mutual trust and understanding through innovative person-to-person activity in our region.

This is just one of many other time consuming but gratifying activities of mine.