Inner Growth Companionship Program
An Inner Growth Companionship Program (IGCP) 4 was held in Bandung, 26th to 29th December 2019. This program is the School of Reconciliation’s routine training program that happens every year for upgrading all the volunteers’ skills, and of course supported by the Akasha team from Malaysia; Nandor, Wenny, Xiang, Karen and Jennifer. Also there was a special guest in the training; a lovely lady from the UK, Anne Sharon. There were 11 participants who joined the training this time. The main topic discussed in the training was “Inner Bonding”, how we reconnect and build relationships with our inner child. The training was also to strengthen the bonds within the team.
Included in the 4 days, the intensive training lasted three days. The last day was for a one-day workshop for the public. Every morning, Nandor led the session on what IofC is, the core values, the history from Frank Buchman and the practice of inner listening (quiet time). The second session was team building conducted by Nandor and Wenny. This session was more about how to understand the stages of each person/volunteer in the team, so that the team can choose the role as their understanding to the community (School of Reconciliation).
The third session was reading an Inner Bonding book and doing some exercises based on the book, such as creating a dialogue between the inner parent and our inner child. With this process, we are taught to have more understanding of ourselves and to be able to love ourselves properly. The last session was movie night. We watched a movie and then discussed the message and the learnings which can be taken from the movie related to our training. On day two the last session was a community night; we played games and sang songs. On the third day, the last session was Conflict Resolution and preparing a one-day workshop on 29th December 2019.
The one day workshop was supported by Peace Academy of PeaceGeneration Indonesia and boardgame.id. The theme of the workshop was “Self-Acceptance”. Around 32 people attended the workshop from 09.00 am to 04.00 pm. As our tradition of Indonesian people and IofC, the program started by singing our national anthem “Indonesia Raya” and this was followed by, “Be the Change” from IofC.
Nenden and Dhuha as representatives of the School of Reconciliation shared their personal stories on how they met this work and became interested, their relationship with their parents in the past, their childhood and how this program helped them to have a better life. After sharing, participants were given time to ask anything to the speakers. Then after a break for lunch, participants were asked to share in pairs what they found new from the previous session.
“Images” is a song with a powerful message and the team sang it before Nandor and Wenny started the afternoon session. This song talks about how people everyday use their mask to pretend and not be the person they really are and this related to what Nandor and Wenny would share. Nandor and Wenny are a couple and they have given audiences an understanding about the relationship between husband and wife by sharing their life story with their parents. Wenny talked about her relationship with her father and Nandor talked about his relationship with his mother. Both stories were powerful and they helped all the participants to reflect and share about their life; some of them were emotional. This was followed by an interaction with questions and answers so that participants could fully understand what they had heard.
The last session of the workshop was how to respond and resolve conflict in a relationship. Nandor said that all the problems or conflict come from interpersonal relationships. The participants divided into small groups and practiced the “five steps on how to respond and resolve conflict’. The workshop ended by singing “It's Better to Light One Candle than to Curse the Darkness.’ This song spoke about what we can do for this world even it is a small thing.
The workshop was the last activity of the School Reconciliation learning program. All the people in the team felt tired and excited at the same time. Tired because of all the activities and excited to welcome emerging new energy for their life after the training. We ended our training program by setting the agenda for next year, attending the international conference in Malaysia, hosted by Akasha Learning Center in June 2020.
Reported by Siti Rukoyah