Workshops

Workshop on Community Care for Those Suffering Violence and Trauma.  Basil Pillay, PhD.  Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, Durban, South Africa.  

Aggrieved persons and groups do the work of recovery, but other individuals and groups provide powerful assistance in addressing needs, facilitating recovery, and re-establishing community. Once a consultant to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, Professor Pillay now heads his institution’s Department of Behavioural Medicine—a large and highly effective centre for addressing  violence, victimization, and trauma in individuals and groups.  
In recounting his experience with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Professor Pillay will describe the astonishing impact of victim testimony on the public generally, and—remarkably—on the press in attendance, who themselves in large numbers straightaway sought major assistance from Professor Pillay and his team to assist them in dealing with their personal reactions to what they saw and heard.  This reminds workshop attendees: it is not only those suffering the trauma, but those witnessing it, who need sensitive support from leaders in the community.  
Many popular methods don’t help; Professor Pillay presents those proven effective.  He has a long record of community service in churches and schools in South Africa, and his workshop especially addresses the roles of religious, educational, and civic leaders, and those who volunteer their service to aggrieved individuals and groups.  The workshop may well be of interest also to journalists and other opinion leaders who must transmit the sometimes sorrowful news of violence and trauma.
Those interested should contact Mr. Brown (details on the front of this programme) by June 3 in order to assure that adequate space and resources are provided.       

Professor Cole is a university professor and scholar, who while continuing his formal academic research and publication has also become an influential contributor to public dialogue on the internet.  There, factual reporting and evidence-based advocacy have forever changed the face of journalism and pamphleteering as we have known them over previous centuries.  
Arguably, this is the first time in history that a single individual, at very little cost, can produce a document that is instantly readable by many millions of individuals across the world.   Here more than ever the computer screen—if not the pen—is far mightier than the sword.  
Attendees will gain the skills and lessons of Professor Cole’s experience: what works, what doesn’t work, and what endures—when individuals speaking only for themselves address worldwide web audiences.

Workshop on Writing about War and Peace:  *Jean Makdisi (see above), Victor Merriman, Head of Drama and Theatre Studies, and *Terry Phillips, Dean of Arts and Humanities, the latter two at Liverpool Hope University.

Jean Makdisi (see Wednesday’s keynote in the Arts), is a writer whose gifts have not only enabled her to produce beautiful literature, but have enabled her to provide them to students of all ages. Victor Merriman is equally gifted in bringing words to life in theatrical contexts, and he convincingly exemplifies the evidence that public theatre can be a major influence for social and political change.  Terry Phillips is a scholar of the literature of the First World War, who also understands how such literature expresses, confirms, and even changes the self-identification of those who write and read it.  A skilful writer and interpreter of public events, she has at Hope University also been a strong force for lifting writing skills of students and others.
Together, these individuals are able in the workshop to assist any persons wanting to learn skills of writing about human experiences of war and peace, try their own hand at such writing, and gain sensitive and constructive guidance and feedback.  
The workshop is open to students in secondary school as well as university, and also to those of any age or education with experience or interest in writing.  
Those interested need to contact Mr. Brown, whose details are on the front of the programme, by June 3, so that adequate resources can be provided; these are expected to include computer technology to enable anonymous display and commentary on the student writings.    

*In the programme, denotes members of the Centre’s International Advisory Board