The Road to Transformation

I attended the Community Engagement Discourse and Theory workshop. What an eye opener!? I attended hoping to hear about the actual theory that underlies Community Engagement. Typical Psychology-thinking me... Anyway, was taken aback by the facilitator, I suspected that was her as she walked into the room, she greeted, personally handshook each one of us. The concepts used were mostly Philosophical and quite abstract, but wow! they got me  thinking. She gave the presentation and then allowed us to "chat" about that. According to the presenter Dr. Catherine Odora-Hoppers, the workshop was aimed at understanding how when aware of a situation that needs change, we become the agents of that change. However, in an attempt to influence these changes, we need to be aware of the discourses that underlie individual consciousness and the structural determinants that abound us. She defined Violence on three levels,  Direct, structural and cultural violence. Therefore, as the agents of change we might find ourselves actually carrying processes that cloud the consequences of our actions. She reminded us to be real, to be human before we are discipline focused. To step out of our disciplines, and allow life to teach us how to go about being alive! To be aware that communities are formed by exclusions, and we must be very careful, who we exclude in the communities we approach. We are blinded by the understanding that we come to communities as experts, "Reaching out". Ultimately, we have the power to frame things, the power to change the way people think. We need to be aware that as individuals we hold the key to the door to strategic change. Now and again during the presentation, she reminded us to Breathe! This workshop was not just about Community engagement as expected on our IPMS, it was a lifeskills workshop which I'll take into my life as a whole, with every human interaction I face. How I summed up the presentation, "Be aware of your power, it is not about occupying a post!"