Peacebuilders
SPP a "thrilling" success!
7 November 2011
After months of planning, preparation, and eager anticipation, the 12th edition of our ‘Strengthening Policy and Practice' course came to a successful close last month with the graduation of our 21 participants from across the world. The graduation ceremony marked the end of the five day course aimed at identifying how organisations can strive to balance their organisational mandate with the demands of working in complex and rapidly changing political emergencies. While covering such a complex topic in a five day period is a challenge, one participant declared that the course should be taught to "the whole world - everybody needs to learn this if we are to have a peaceful world!"
While the course was led by in-house tutor Joan McGregor and special guest tutor Simon Fisher, its success significantly relied on the participants, and holds their personal experiences imperative to furthering this understanding. By bringing together humanitarian, development, and peace workers from a range of different countries and contexts to share their experiences, the participants were able to examine the key issues that are emerging in the various conflict situations they are involved in. With contributors ranging from Executive Directors to on-the-ground Project Managers, from Indonesia to the newly created South Sudan, this years SPP course had a very wide ranging mix of experiences to draw on.
Dismissing the use of long lectures, the tutors utilised workshops, role playing, and group work to further their development, and implemented mock-case studies to allow the theory to be put into practice. One practitioner exclaimed that "no lecturing was fantastic!" while others thought the participatory structure to the course significantly aided their learning.
Although SPP has brought together peace practitioners from across the globe for the last 12 years and has had more than 240 different people having taken part, we were as sad as ever to say farewell to the participants of the 12th course. However, we are certain that our paths will cross theirs many more times in the future. We are confident that the legacy of our friendship will live on in the fantastic work they will be doing with their new skills.
