When I joined Perspectivity as an intern in May 2015, my goal was to get more acquainted with the complexity of social issues. Through joining several Network and Enterprise meetings/events, I got a lot of insight into the very broad complex issues Perspectivity is dealing with. It has been really inspiring to see the courage of the passionate Perspectivity members to address complexity – all in their field of expertise and with their personal style, but all “Perspectivity” through and through.
By assisting Lisette with the evaluation of the YouthLEAD project of UNICEF in South Sudan, I have been able to refresh and learn a lot of skills that will be very helpful during my sociology master that I have started at the beginning of this month. I am really looking forward to study sociology with the “systemic-complexity” approach of Perspectivity in the back of my mind.
As a criminal-law-graduate and sociology student, the two-days Restorative Circles training with former judge Charlotte Keijzer and coach and mediator Carla Houben was definitely the highlight of my internship. It has been quite a challenge to “really” listen to one another in order to find out the true core of a problem and to afterwards apply this questioning-technique in a circle to facilitate a complex problem. It has become very clear to me that not only society, but also a “simple” dialogue or even a “simple” word can be most complex.
While accepting that complex issues cannot simply be solved in a couple of weeks, months or years, I have decided to try and implement the things that I’ve learned during the Restorative Circles workshop and my internship in my closest environment. Once I feel more confident about those skills, I would like to expand the range of application. I hope that through this, I can practice how to use dialogue and facilitating/mediation skills professionally, in order to help to solve or at least address more complex problems of our society in the future.
Thanks for everything, Perspectivity!