Human Rights, and UPEACE Café

Hello, Friends!

Life is good. Since I last wrote, I was taking a Human Rights Education course, which was interesting....the first week was distance learning because I guess the professor, who is the founder of an organization called Human Rights Education Associates based in the US, could only come for two weeks. So we actually did the first week distance-learning. Our online discussion forum was good, but twice they made us come to campus for a video conference, which failed miserably due to the weak internet connection at the university. It was frustrating for everyone and a bit of a waste of time. The first week was a little rough.

Then the next two weeks were completely overloaded. We had class 4 hours a day (rather than the usual 3), had several large assignments (which were interesting, but hard work), and well over 100 pages of reading on most nights. In the last class, I felt I was challenged, but was able to meet the challenge; with this course, the reading seemed like a joke. Eventually most of us gave up on it, which is unfortunate. I'll try to read it someday.

The highlight was our final project. For our project, Jess and I designed a Tranformative Learning Human Rights workshop, which we are actually going to give on campus in January. The morning of the workshop focuses on community buliding and communication, and the afternoon focuses on social identity and power dynamics. The whole day involves a lot of group discussion. We're really excited to make it happen!

Speaking of making things happen...we (Jess and I) hosted our first World Café dialogue event last night! It was a small turnout, but really fun. We're hoping that as we continue to host them, we'll reach more people in the UPEACE community. We're starting a blog for it: worldpeacecafe.blogspot.com, so if you'd like, check it out! (I didn't write on it yet, but plan to do it today). And if you want to know more about the World Café, which is a really interesting method of large group conversation, please check out www.theworldcafe.com.

Meanwhile...Jess and I also want to start a cafe at UPEACE. Just a little pipe dream, but something the university is lacking, and we could do workshops and it could serve as a community center (there isn't one) as well. It would be nice!

OH! And I got a job! I'm teaching a few hours a week at an English language center in Ciudad Colon. I taught two private classes last week and it was so nice. I think what I love most about teaching English is connecting with people. It will really help my budget too!

So human rights education is over, and we have 4 days off! I don't have any plans, might take a day trip somewhere, but mostly just want to relax.

Hope this finds you well!