Reflecting on the learning of the Women’s Programme

“Women’s leadership in peace can no longer be ignored; on the contrary, it should be recognised as one of the most valuable resources for peace.”

“The thinking that gives rise to armed conflict has its roots in the unequal power relationship between men and women.  There is a continuum of violence, from domestic violence to violence in the political and economic spheres, which must be systematically challenged.”

(From the Preamble of the Women’s Global Action for a Culture of Peace, prepared by women peace leaders for 1999 Hague Appeal for Peace conference)

Over many years the programme work of Glencree has been innovative and produced great results making a significant contribution to peacebuilding and reconciliation on this island. We are now reflecting on what we have learnt in the different programme areas. Part of my role as Learning Co-ordinator involves working with the programmes to create a record of the work and draw out the key learning. This will make us more aware of how we do things and consequently be more effective in doing it. While this may mean that more comprehensive reports will be written, we are concerned to find other ways to capture and document our learning. The Women’s programme has made a good start to this process by dedicating a residential weekend at Glencree from 8th to10th May to this purpose.

Former participants and facilitators came together to reflect on and discuss the work of the programme over a number of years and this was a good opportunity to get a sense of the extent and quality of the work done. The participants came from Northern Ireland and the Republic and were a good representation of the programme with some having almost ten years involvement. Fran Banks who was one of the founders of the programme spoke of the early initiatives she was involved in.

Saturday was entirely devoted to the exploration of the participants’ reflections.  The day began with an initial exercise to bring people together by sharing a sense of what they cared most about in an open way. This helped to set up a sense of safety and comfort where people could talk about their experiences of the programme. People spoke of how they initially got involved and the things they liked. They also commented on the changes that emerged through their involvement in the programme. The next session focused more on how the programme might develop and become more effective and how Glencree could support this. Both of these sessions were taped as a record and are available as a record of the reflective process. The final session asked people to think about areas which were less effective and how they could be improved. This session was not taped, but participants wrote up their comments. Phil Killeen and Sorcha Tormey were involved as facilitators on the day. Our thanks to all the participants who made such honest and enthusiastic contributions.

The documentation from the day is being written up and will be made available as a reflective record of what has been learnt through the programme. This will be useful in planning future activities and guiding the future development of the programme. We hope to continue this work and also run similar sessions with other Glencree programmes.

Eamon Rafter, Learning Co-ordinator